Step 1: Assessment - Export Hawke's Bay

Step 1: Assess Your Readiness to Export

It is important to explore the following areas in assessing whether your business is ready to export:

Commitment
Developing export markets can be costly in terms of time, money and resources. Does your company have the commitment required to make a success of exporting? Entering new markets and developing them usually takes considerable time and effort. You must take a long term view. Consider how many resources and how long it takes to break into a new regional market in New Zealand. The time and cost can be multiplied several times when you are looking at an overseas market.

Product
It is important to know your product and its marketing advantages. You need to be confident that your product or service is sufficiently proven and developed to take it out into the world. Do you have good product literature available? Price may not be the deciding factor. Market niches can be based on quality. You may need to change product design to suit different markets.

Production
You need to be confident that your product or service is sufficiently proven and developed to take it out into the world. You also need to make sure you have the production capacity to meet the demands of the additional markets you¡¦re targeting. Can the existing capacity be expanded quickly when required? If you obtain export orders they must be filled properly. Consider the impact of new orders on your production processes and funding resources. Do you have sufficient staff numbers? Consideration needs to be given to the amount of space you have available (versus what you might need), the effect of exporting on your domestic trade, and how you will handle this. The product or technology might be more suited to a licensing arrangement.

Marketing
It is vital to have a strong marketing background. Does your company have solid marketing knowledge and experience gained by selling in a number of main centres throughout New Zealand? If your product has had limited exposure in New Zealand it could be more cost effective to expand at home before the major steps of developing new markets overseas.

Selecting markets and setting pricing
You need to have done the research to validate both the potential and the investment. Which markets you will enter, the dynamics of those markets and the impact this will have on your offering. You will need to decide on how you will price your products and services in each market.

Management
A new management thrust will require considerable management time. Does your company have the available management capacity which will be required to develop export markets? Is it necessary to strengthen the management team to service overseas exports properly?

Finance
You'll need access to enough capital to fund growth and manage your new production demands. Breaking into any new markets requires considerable funds (research, airfares, accommodation, advertising, trade fairs, sales promotion, new brochures, training or overseas sales agents etc).

Does your company have the financial strength to commit say $40,000 or more for the year or two it may take to develop a new overseas market with no guarantee of a return on this investment? For more complex markets such as USA or Japan the amount required could be almost double this figure. How you will continue to access any further capital you might need to fund growth and manage production.

To read more on Are You Ready To Export click here

Next Step: Cover off Financial Issues