Posts Tagged ‘Exporting’

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April 18th, 2012

Looking for business partners abroad?

On April 10, seven Laval entrepreneurs attended a Webinar on two trade missions , one to Futurallia Lille Region 2012 (June 27 to 29) and another to Centrallia Manitoba 2012 (October 10 to 12). The purpose of the briefing, attended by companies from various regions of Quebec, was to explain the Allia concept and to present the prices and programs of the two events.

Briefly, Futurallia and Centrallia are two international business to business match-making forums, where upwards of 600 SME leaders from different countries and sectors gather for pre-arranged meetings over a period of two days. Quebec sends business delegations to these events each year, with great success.
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April 2nd, 2012

Internationalizing your SME – a down-to-earth approach

As a result of the Great Recession and the rise of emerging nations, the global trade and economic context has changed dramatically in the last few years. Picking markets and crafting  an international business development strategy is becoming much harder, leaving no room for improvisation. What all this means is that more than ever, the LTIBC must offer its clients highly personalized coaching if it is to help them expand abroad successfully. This realization has guided our strategic plan for the next three years.

The introduction of our new coaching and training program Internationalize your SME: a down-to-earth approach in February is our first concrete demonstration of this new strategic vision. This program allows participating businesses to develop a winning internationalization strategy and to receive sustained coaching to help them grow their sales abroad. Seven Laval firms have signed up and are enthusiastically forging ahead, a testament to the strong interest sparked by this type of project among Laval SMEs. (more…)

April 2nd, 2012

Where do the rich live?

We’ve been hearing a lot in the last few years about emerging nations and the increasingly attractive opportunities they offer exporters. The fact is though, that even if a country is booming, it’s not always easy to figure out if there are enough consumers for your products, especially if they are high end. Comparisons then become even harder.

Although GDP per capita can help you estimate the average income in a country, it doesn’t reflect the usually uneven distribution of wealth or other factors that affect consumers’ standard of living and their ability to afford high-end goods.

Here are some interesting indices to help you compare the wealth and prosperity in different countries: (more…)

January 13th, 2012

Why an oil spike is inevitable and how to prepare for it?

The recent economic turbulence around the world has slowed oil price increases, and this is expected to continue into 2012. However, in the long term, as the global economy recovers, oil demand is likely to grow faster than supply. According to a special feature in the November 2011 issue of the McKinsey Quarterly, at the rate things are going, an oil shock, characterized by high, volatile prices, is quite possible in the years ahead. Business leaders need to take this very seriously.

The fact is that current incentives to cut energy consumption and the move toward greener energy sources will not be enough to slow the growth of global demand for energy. On the supply side, the increase in output is not expected to be enough to meet demand because of the technological challenges and massive investments required to exploit new energy sources. Since supply will barely meet demand, expect to see oil prices climb sharply down the road, which will have a major impact on the world economy.

The price hikes will likely affect economic growth by sapping consumption and international trade and encouraging consumers and industry to implement measures or change their energy consumption habits. As such, McKinsey forecasts that supply and demand will again become balanced but not before 2020 because of the time it will take to make these adjustments and the lag between their implementation and their real impact on oil demand.
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December 16th, 2011

Exporters, are you still optimistic about 2012?

Last May I published a blog about renewed enthusiasm for exports. Unfortunately, the economic news have been anything but good since then: the financial crisis has deepened in Europe, U.S. unemployment is at a standstill, the financial markets are collapsing, the U.S. is again contemplating a “Buy American” clause in its new recovery plan, a double-dip recession is a growing possibility, the Canadian dollar is anything but stable, and the list goes on. It’s hard to be optimistic these days.

I was therefore rather surprised to read the EDC’s fall 2011 global export forecast in which Peter Hall and his team maintain their bullish spring outlook for Canadian exports for both this year and next. EDC predicts, among other things that “the world economy will capitalize on the current increase in underlying activity, and continue to find remedies for the shocks and weaknesses that beset near-term growth, tiding the economy through to better times” (page 5). As such, EDC is projecting positive growth for global GDP and for Canadian exports in 2011 and 2012. Thus, Canadian exports will increase by 12% in 2011, the same as in 2010, and 7% in 2012. The figures for Quebec are 4% for this year and 7% in 2012. (more…)

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