Made in the Midlands: Sold to the World Exporter Roadshow

Insider Media

Insider has hosted a half-day event aimed at helping businesses to export in partnership with the government's Department for Business and Trade.  The Made in the Midlands: Sold to the World Exporter Roadshow took place yesterday (12 Nov) at the Rolls-Royce Flight Operations Centre at East Midlands Airport.  The event featured 22 speakers, including exports minister Gareth Thomas and East Midlands mayor Claire Ward, and focused on demystifying the export process by showcasing successful international traders and providing detailed advice.

Transcript

00:00Hello, my name's Ian Griffin, Deputy Editor of Midlands Business Insider, and I've just

00:13hosted this Made in the Midlands, Sold to the World, Exporter Roadshow here at the Rolls-Royce

00:20Flight Operations Centre at East Midlands Airport.

00:24It was an event that was held in association with the Department of Business and Trade.

00:28We had 22 fantastic speakers, including the Export Minister, Gareth Thomas, and the East

00:36Midlands Mayor, Clare Ward.

00:40We looked at how to export, what markets to target, what compliance you needed to be aware

00:49of, what certification, what paperwork, the costs, the help that you need.

00:55We heard that there was a lot of low price or even free advice from the Department of

01:02Business and Trade on offer.

01:05Great event, let's hear what some of our speakers had to say about it.

01:13It's International Trade Week and I really wanted to come to the Midlands because the

01:18Midlands is one of the great areas of the UK that focuses on exports.

01:26It's a part of the UK famous for innovation and to be here at the Rolls-Royce factory

01:33only underlines the message about the significance of the Midlands for exports.

01:39We think there's still a lot more that can be done to help small businesses in particular,

01:44but also larger businesses to think about new export markets, new ways of raising income

01:50and growing their business.

01:53The roadshow today here in the East Midlands is about talking to businesses that are ready

01:59to take the next leap forward for their business to find new markets maybe, to start exporting

02:05perhaps for a very first time, and to be made aware of what support there is out there to

02:13help them on that journey, whether it's export champions, people in business who've done

02:18the hard yards already of finding export markets, whether it's international trade advisors

02:24that the Department of Business and Trade has access to, or a range of other support

02:29that we can offer to businesses that want to export.

02:33My name's Jane Sheppard, I'm a Director of Sheppard PR, so we're based in the Midlands

02:38and we've been going for 25 years.

02:40Our main sectors are in sustainable construction, we do travel and we do a lot of trade association

02:46PR, but we're also quite unusual in the fact that for a service business in our sector

02:51we do export.

02:52So we work in Austria, we've been working in Austria now for almost 10 years, and we

02:57also work this year starting in Portugal.

03:00So from our perspective, sometimes I think small businesses can think export's out of

03:05their league, it's too difficult.

03:08Actually my message that I was trying to get over today is that it isn't, it's actually

03:12really quite straightforward to export as a service business.

03:16You are just taking what you do and rolling it out.

03:19The main thing is that you focus on one country at a time and you really get to know that

03:24country.

03:25You do forensic research on it and you really focus on how you can really help and support

03:30that.

03:31My name's Malcolm Hall, I'm a Managing Director and owner of Allfast Industrial Supplies based

03:36in Mansfield.

03:37I founded Allfast from the back bedroom of the family home in 2006, initially supplying

03:42specialist fastenings to the UK automotive industry, but we diversified at the height

03:46of recession and started to export.

03:50We find exporting at one point was vital to our survival, it's now key to our success

03:56and growth.

03:57Bringing it up to date, we're now 195,000 SKUs products on our website, which is supplied

04:03to over 95 countries.

04:06It's been good talking to businesses very directly here about some of the challenges

04:11they face, some of the concerns they have about what direction different export markets

04:18might go in.

04:20And certainly one of the areas that we're focusing on this International Trade Week

04:25is what can we do to encourage businesses to think, despite all the difficulties that

04:30there have been in trading with Europe, to actually see our nearest neighbours as a great

04:37market opportunity going forward.

04:39We know there are challenges and we want to try and address some of those challenges in

04:43terms of trading with Europe.

04:45We're having a bit of a reset moment with Europe at the moment and we're getting into

04:50some then next year some serious negotiations about an SPS agreement to help bring food

04:57prices and barriers to trade around food down.

05:00We're going to look at mutual recognition of professional qualifications to make things

05:05a bit easier for businesses in that area in terms of accessing talent.

05:09And then we're looking at the whole trade and cooperation agreement deal, how can we

05:14make that work better going forward.

05:16So I think there will be real opportunities in the longer term, but in the short term

05:24there are still opportunities for British business in Europe and we want to help companies

05:29begin to think those challenges through.

05:32When you do export I think it has a number of benefits really.

05:37It gives you more resilience, you've got more eggs in your basket.

05:40It can strengthen your own reputation in the UK and you're also learning from international

05:46experiences that you can bring back home.

05:49For staff there's great opportunities, I love the fact that our apprentices and our

05:54staff have been going out working in Vienna, working in Portugal, working in Innsbruck.

06:00That's really really rewarding for me to see that, to see people benefit from those opportunities.

06:07We find that the Department for Business and Trade have been key to helping us when we're

06:13dealing with customers overseas in various different markets, along with the Chamber

06:17of Commerce and specialist freight forwarders.

06:20We are finding more and more that customers in new overseas markets that contact us are

06:25wanting us to use our dedicated freight forwarders to consolidate shipments overseas, which is

06:31ideal for us when dealing with specific paperwork and requirements for different market sectors.

06:36In terms of support, the number one thing is that the Department for Business and Trade

06:40is available here to help and a lot, a huge amount, the vast majority of the support they

06:47deliver is free.

06:49They've got a massive untapped capacity for small businesses like myself to get to know

06:55what's available in terms of market experts, country experts, Embassy Network is hugely

07:02hugely supportive.

07:05Britain's blessed with a really established Embassy Network around the world and they've

07:09got experts who want to help and really the message is, tap into the Department for Business

07:15and Trade, look into ideas of how you can export and take the step.

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