retour
 
   

 

Workshop 2  «Development of services provision for SMEs and firm creation in the field of Internet

SPEAKER : Mr Alan REYNOLDS

 
Title : Director, Export Services
Organism :Department of Trade and Industry
Country : United Kingdom
Postal Address : 66-74 Victoria Street, GB-London SW1E 6SW
Phone : +44 171 215 4311
 
 
Putting foreign buyers in touch with UK exporters
 
Summary
 
I would propose to introduce TradeUK which may be found at www.tradeuk.com
 
This is a service launched 1 September 1998 by the UK Government which is designed to:
provide a UK SME with a standardised, listing in a National Exporters Database ("NED") visible to any foreign firm, anywhere at anytime. The NED describes what the UK firm makes or supplies and provides contact details (postal address, telephone, fax or e-mail) enable a UK SME to pre-register interests in countries and products and to receive e-mail alerts about corresponding sales leads reported to TradeUK by British embassies abroad or by foreign buyers enable a UK SME to search a database on the Internet containing all sales leads which have been reported.
No charge is made for the service for the average SME user. Only firms making significant demands pay any fee.
 
After 5 months, 54,000 firms are on the NED, of whom 6000 have asked to receive e-mail alerts. Of the firms disclosing the number of employees, 15% have fewer than 10 employees, 40% fewer than 50, and 80% fewer than 250.
 
Targets set for the service were to recruit
100,000 firms on the NED by 30 June 1999
10,000 firms electing by 31 December 1998 to receive e-mail alerts
These will not be achieved. But since 1 September 1998
350,000 searches have been made (by foreign inquirers) on the NED
350,000 e-mail alerts have been sent to UK firms
100,000 seaches made of the sales leads database
Lessons learned so far:
Very little resistance from UK firms to using the Internet to get this service
Difficult to reach SMEs to encourage them to sign up for any service
Offering worldwide service has been uneven because many of our embassies had elderly equipment or are in developing countries where telecommunications are inadequate
 
 
Présentation Power Point