Global Trade

According to the latest 2014 CIA’s World Fact Book, the Gross World Product (GWP) is estimated at about $79 trillion. It is totaled approximately US$107.5 trillion in terms of purchasing power parity growing at about 3% annually.

In light of the global market growth opportunities, it also presents both global challenges in terms of global protectionism and trade tariffs and disputes. Global companies will need to think outside the box to disrupt the trade barriers and close the gaps by leveraging the 21st-century global trade network for both transparencies, trust, and collaboration.

As we can learn from Uber success, every industry can be disrupted with a new innovative model that can break down all barriers to connect and collaborate with over 80% reduction in time and cost savings.

Today’s global trade is extremely challenging for local business and startups because it requires global trade connection and knowledge how to make that happen. Imagine you are a startup or local business with a cool product to export,  you would like to find a good distributor to resell your product. Currently, you can sign up for a physical Trade Mission to find a distributor for specific country or a group of countries. Trade mission is an international trip by government officials or business organizations to explore potential global business opportunities overseas for buyers and joint ventures/channel partners.

But, a typical cost of physical trade mission ranges from $5000 to over $20,000 per trip. It does not guarantee that you have a buyer or distributor.  How many startups or local business can afford that?? Probably not too many.

What if you have a “Global Facilitator” that helps promote your products/services and participate in a physical trade mission for a fraction of the physical costs?

A Global Facilitator is an organization that organizes a physical or/and virtual trade mission for businesses to explore global business opportunities and joint ventures. Many organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce or Business Associations can easily take the role of “Global Facilitator” as they would like to help promote their members’ products/services for exports.

Just like what Uber has disrupted the taxi industry for high barrier to entry by matching both riders and drivers together, we can disrupt the global grade industry by creating a “Global Facilitator” channel that leverages Virtual Expo Network technologies as a match maker to bring both exporters and importers together.

Instead of having one company to pay the full physical trade mission costs, the “Global Facilitator” can leverage the economy of scale and participate in both physical and virtual trade mission and be able to capitalize on it from selling virtual booths to many exhibitors (i.e., local business, startups).

Here are the three simple steps to jumpstart global trade with ongoing collaboration and engagement for daily qualified leads with prospects and partners for a long-term sustainable global prosperity for everyone:

1. Identify Your Industry Specialty and Niche for a Whole Solution

Why Industry Specialty? Why Whole Solution?Answer: Your Unique DifferentiatorEvery day we are flooded with spams and commercials with gadgets and pieces. Every company is trying to push their niche gadget or products/services. It is just too much distraction and noise for all. Serious customers and partners are looking for, whole solutions that integrate all the pieces. The global Facilitators’ job is to provide a 360 degree of vertical solutions including products, services, and educations to specific industries. Since it is laser-targeted and re-targeted, it attracts serious buyers and partners. It offers beyond what you can find in search engines, Amazon.com, Facebook, or Alibaba. (Note – 99.99% of products/services are pieces/gadgets without whole solution)

Virtual Trade Mission between Countries – Hosting a trade mission has been a major challenge for most global trading companies and government trade agencies because of a long lead time for visa approval as well as expensive travel arrangement. With eZ-Xpo’s Virtual Trade Mission approach, companies can now easily launch a virtual trade mission between countries for company introductions as well as ongoing collaboration. Most importantly, companies can have a single collaborative environment for live and on-demand engagement for ongoing collaborations.

The key uniqueness of Global Facilitators is that they can host either physical, virtual, or both hybrid trade mission (both physical and virtual) with targeted partners and companies in the targeted country. Companies (Exhibitors) can showcase their products/services in virtual booths. Global Facilitators can categorize products/services so that they all complement each other for the ideal customer market segment. For example, if you are in the solar industry, you may want to dedicate a virtual expo for residential and commercial separately since the ideal customer profile is uniquely different. In fact, the key competitive advantage is all about business networking with your strategic partners and channel partners delivering a complete whole solution for your ideal customer segment. Since there is NO competitive threat from each partner, every company can promote the event for win-win-win benefits.

3. Deploy Weekly and Monthly Collaboration Opportunity

Despite the benefits of face-to-face meeting with a potential buyer or channel partner, one of the key weaknesses in all physical trade mission events is lack of follow-up for ongoing engagement for nurturing a business relationship. A Virtual Trade Mission can help resolve the gap by deploying weekly or monthly collaborative matchmaking sessions with live virtual engagement via live chat and video conferencing. Exhibitors can host Virtual Business Hangout and educate all potential buyers and channel partners on their products/services on a weekly basis. Exhibitors can set up a discussion board for ongoing discussion. Online surveys can be conducted to filter out for potential qualified prospects. Expert speakers can host virtual private breakout room for more in-depth discussion with attendees.

Finally, everyone can benefit from the Virtual Trade Mission Network approach for the unlimited joint venture and foreign investment opportunities that can create more jobs and bring in more foreign investments in every local city for a long-term sustainable prosperity.