Service Exports USA: A Growth Opportunity Section 2 Part 7

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CREATING YOUR EXPORT PLAN

Export Readiness: Your Industry in Global Markets

SBA

This has been a very extensive and very detailed series on exporting. Anyone that has been following the series may at times have found the task daunting, time consuming and almost impossible. Although exporting does not happen overnight, once it does happen the rewards and benefits of it are just as extensive as the time you put in to get there.

Let’s recap the last few weeks:

• We have done a Industry and product analysis and we identified the most profitable foreign markets for those products
• We then narrowed, defined and researched  the 3 most penetrable foreign markets for your product
• Took a look at short and long term goals and possible financing
• Last week we learned how to do an In-Depth Market Research

As you delve more deeply into your new marketplace(s), you will need to consider the overall global competitiveness of your industry. Much of this information can be obtained from an industry trade association for your particular industry; the following worksheet can be used to compile, track and update this information on a long-term basis.

Worksheet:Your Industry in Targeted Global Markets

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UK exports grow faster than global rivals for first time since 2006 as businesses target non-EU markets

The UK’s success came at a fraught moment for global trade as a whole, as world export growth fell behind overall economic growth for the first time in 14 years. The figures suggested that the country's exporters were already moving towards non-EU markets ahead of this year's EU referendum result.

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AGOA to offer duty-free exports to USA

The Ministry of Trade and Industry is set to promote foreign direct investments and leverage Ghanaian exports to the US market through the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) review strategy.

The strategy, to be rolled out September this year, will allow 30 Ghanaian exporting companies duty-free products to the United States market.

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Social Media How It's Changing Online News

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“The dawn of social news has arrived, and online publishers are realizing that their survival depends on altering their strategy to become more socially oriented.”

The era of online publishers may be coming to its end. More and more statistics are showing that people receive news from sites such as Facebook rather than going to traditional media sources. Furthermore, once people read news from social outlets, they generally discuss the stories on their own Facebook and Twitter pages rather than on the sites where the pieces originated. This means, online publishers are losing traffic as a result of social media rather than experiencing further growth.

Since Facebook announced its new “Instant Articles” feature, which allows anyone to publish articles almost automatically, the threat is becoming even more real. After all, if anyone can produce content with automatic access to a built-in audience as well as conversational tools, why would anyone ever need authentic online news sources?

41% of adults worldwide use Facebook for news

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Related Posts

Facebook’s Instant Articles Open To All In April

7 Content Marketing Trends To Watch In 2016 by Julie Ellis

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Social Media Impact 

Huffington Post

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How social media is reshaping news

Pew Research Center

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social-media-and-its-impact-mainstream-journalism

Reuters Institute

for the study of journalism

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Your Key Performance Indicator

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“KPIs are much like instruments that measure temperature and barometric pressure. It is interesting to know that the temperature increased or decreased, however, it is critical to know whether a storm is imminent. The measures work together to provide a more complete picture of the total situation.”

management.about.com

Any successful business will start out with a sense of purpose, which in turn gives them the foundation of their direction. Goals can then be set and the next logical step is their strategic planning to reach those targets. KPI”s, or Key Performance Indicators, is the measurements used to help assess whether or not your business is currently where it should be to reach those goals

Some examples are:

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18 Key Performance Indicator Examples Defined For Managers

If you manage a team, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of key performance indicators (KPIs). Regardless, let’s take a little refresher course before we get right down to some examples and equation samples for the most important metrics.

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Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – Complete Guide

There is virtually no limit to the number of good KPIs you can find.

It all depends upon the nature of the business and the industry you work in.

For example if you work in an industry where majority/all of the conversions happen offline via phone calls then you can use ‘Phone Calls’ as your KPI.

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Service Exports USA: A Growth Opportunity Section 2 Part 6

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CREATING YOUR EXPORT PLAN

Export Readiness: Market Factor Assessment 

Last week we looked at tariffs and at which markets to pursue.  Unless you are trading within the North American Fair Trade Agreement area (the United States, Canada and/or Mexico) or in markets linked to the U.S. by trade agreements, tariffs can become a major factor in determining your pricing.

We also began the important strategic steps of laying the foundation of the actual strategy of use entering a foreign market by summarizing possible expansion needs that may need financing. We did this by defining your Short Term and Long-Term goals. Now that those have been determined, we are now ready to develop your Marketing Plan.

The Marketing Plan helps to prepare your business to enter the international marketplace. Here we will cover the process of creating one.

Often, an industry will have a few key indicators or measures that will help determine the industry strength and demand within an international market. A manufacturer of medical equipment, for example, may use the number of hospital beds, the number of surgeries and public expenditures for health care as indicators to assess the potential for these products.

The worksheet needed here: Market Factor Assessment. This worksheet outlines ... 

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13 Businesses With Brilliant Global Marketing Strategies

Thanks to the internet, global reach is no longer reserved for deep-pocketed brands, nor is it an incredible hassle for already over-burdened marketing managers.In fact, a global presence is possible for any business with a creative strategy and an understanding of world markets. What is good global marketing?To give you an idea of what a great global marketing strategy looks like, we've compiled a list of brands that totally "get it."

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Going Global: How to Expand Your Business Internationally 

For most entrepreneurs, building and maintaining a local customer base is one of the first steps on the road to success. Once they have achieved this goal, some business owners feel they're ready to take on the next step: expanding internationally.

Becoming a global company is ...

Reduce Payment Fraud For Your Business

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Originally Published by

www.xero.com

Small businesses tend to use paper documents.

Payment fraud costs US companies billions of dollars every year. So it’s an issue every business needs to be concerned about.

Does your business pay bills using cheques? Do you send out printed invoices? You could be revealing sensitive business information to criminals

Small businesses often have fewer people and resources available for accounting tasks. Which is why many business owners record their transactions on paper. While that may sound like an easy option, there are hidden dangers with using paper documents.

Online bill payment software is fast, easy – and safe

It’s much safer and easier to use a payments solution that enables you to do all your work online. Online payment software makes it easy to pay your bills online quickly and easily from anywhere – as long as you have an internet connection. And you only have to key in data once, which means fewer errors – and no more manual double entry.

Using paper checks and invoices is risky.

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Managing The Risk of Business Fraud

All organizations are subject to fraud risks. Large frauds have led to the downfall of entire organizations, massive investment losses, significant legal costs, incarceration of key individuals, and erosion of confidence in capital markets. Publicized fraudulent behavior by key executives has negatively impacted the reputations, brands, and images of many organizations around the globe.

 Combating Paper Based Fraud

Paper-based fraud is a crime of opportunity that can be prevented through the use of anti-fraud services and by implementing tight internal controls. It is important to remember that check fraud continues to grow rapidly and a ects companies of every size and type.

Navigating the On-Demand Economy Part 2

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The On-Demand Blueprint

Part 2

This is an essential guide, published by Cloud factory, for businesses navigating today’s on-demand economy and the various models and workforces you can tap to gain a competitive advantage. You may find it interesting and helpful if you are or work with:

• Marketing Teams - That need creative and specialty services, such as logo or template creation.
• Start Ups - Looking to create or scale products and services.
• Executives - Looking for innovative service models that could give their companies an edge in a competitive market.
• Investors - Looking for a new competitive advantage for portfolio companies.
• Entrepreneurs - who seek to develop a new service or product.
• Enterprise Companies - Whose products or services include routine, repetitive back office work that can be automated and/or outsourced.

The Secret Sauce: Software + Humans

For decades, movies introduced us to fascinating technology, like fingerprint and retinal scanning or using software to analyze thousands of records in seconds to find a match to a single record. Much of this technology is available today. Computers can recognize the written word, voices, faces and more. They also can process, distribute and analyze high volumes of data with speed and accuracy.

But computers can’t do everything we see in the movies. They’re only as powerful as the software that runs them. And while the forces of artificial intelligence ...

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RELATED POSTS

Navigating the On-Demand Economy Part 1

A New Breed of Small Business Is Emerging

The Emerging Impact On Business

SMALL BUSINESS OVERWHELMED

CONVENIENCE DOMINATES

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Dispatches From The New Economy: The On-Demand Economy And The Future Of Work

6 Tips For Getting Started With An On-Demand Workforce

Fortunately, making the transition to a flexible workforce isn’t as overwhelming as you might think. Whether you’ve got an aggressive timetable or are opting to take a more conservative approach, we’ve crafted a simple framework that you can follow to make sure your organization has considered every aspect of building an effective on-demand workforce.

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Kodak - The Giant That Fell

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“Imagine a time well into the future where someone might not understand what it means to “Google” something. That mental image is impossible for anyone with regular Internet access to fully realize.” jpwatchdog.com

"You press the button, we do the rest," In 1888, George Eastman coined the slogan for Kodak as they put their first camera into the hands of a world of eager consumers wanting a simple way to take pictures.

Until Kodak, the only way to have a picture taken was to hire a professional photographer. With the introduction of Kodak’s first camera, suddenly photography became a part of the family. The camera accompanied us on family outings, vacations, holidays and birthdays. Scores of pictures of living generations were snapped and placed into photo albums.

The term, “Kodak moment” was used for almost a 100 years ...

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This is the  2nd in a series on the rise and fall of giants

and the lessons that we can perhaps learn.

More Information Regarding the Rise & Fall of Kodak

Kodak: 130 years of history

1994 - Apple launched one of the first consumer digital cameras, the QuickTake. It was actually designed by Kodak and had been released months before Apple's version in Japan under its own brand name. The camera took photos at a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels.

2004 - Kodak stopped selling film cameras in the face of increasingly popular digital alternatives.

2005 - Kodak was the largest seller of digital cameras in the US, with revenue reaching $5.7bn. By 2007 it had fallen to fourth place and by 2010 to seventh.

How Success Killed Eastman Kodak

Since peaking in February 1999 at about $80 a share, Kodak shares have suffered a steady tumble that wiped out 99% of their value — to 78 cents a share as of Sept. 30.  At the end of June, Kodak’s liabilities exceeded its assets by $1.4 billion. It then owed $1.4 billion and had $957 million in cash, down $847 million from the end of 2010.

The moment it all went wrong for Kodak

"The world's biggest film company filed for bankruptcy yesterday, beaten by the digital revolution. 

The only problem is, the enemy started within"

A Shopping Revolution That Occurred In The Last Century

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