Exporting the Midlands in a post-Brexit world | TheBusinessDesk.com – The Business Desk

The UK has been looking to reshape its trading relationship with the world in recent years. Whether driven by necessity or the chances created by a new vision, businesses from across the Midlands are well-placed to make an impact on the global stage.

Our managing director Alex Turner discussed with a panel of experts how the Midlands is exporting in a post-Brexit world.

Are you looking to grow at the moment into international markets or just looking to consolidate what you have?

Laura Clarke, Director, Chilwell Products

We have quite a lot of return business anyway. Its just ensuring that our lead times remain unaffected. Lead times for us is one of the biggest things and weve invested in new machinery. So weve got the additional capacity and were able to do things quickly.

It will be the challenges with transport and external factors that we cant control. We have tried to put ourselves in the best position possible to obviously navigate through it. I think, in some ways, having had the pandemic and obviously, now were looking at the war, people are almost used to uncertainty and used to challenges which is actually quite a good thing.

Where do you see the hotspots for UK businesses?

Shehzad Chaudhary, Midlands Deputy Director, DIT

The key focus for us is agri-food and drink that is particularly strong in certainly in the East Midlands and financial professional services. Birmingham is quickly becoming home to booming sectors, such as creative industries, education, tech and digital consumer figures and clean growth.

The governments never had more of a focus on place-based approach now with levelling up and putting that extra support in so were working across with our counterparts.

When negotiating free trade agreements based on the feedback for businesses like from the panel today we need to negotiate across those issues that youre facing. Sometimes these are regulatory, or things such as shipping tariffs.

Its really about listening to businesses at this stage in terms of what theyre experiencing with markets.

What have you learnt from your experiences?

Guy McEvoy, CEO & Founder, GuyKat

I think theres a low barrier to entry if you have digital or professional services and products, because those you know, the bureaucracy associated with shipping finished goods isnt something I have to worry about.

Technology has allowed us to deal with customer inquiries from literally anywhere on the planet. We have done obscure places like Chile. To do business effortlessly with Mexico or Australia wouldnt have seemed possible 10 years ago.

You shouldnt believe if youre in professional services, or in digital, that there are enormous barriers to stopping youre entering the thing when my mindset changed from that, that transformed our business.

What are some of the things that you would highlight to a first-time exporter?

William Brown, MD, SuperFOIL Insulation

To know your terms would be one of the most important ones. We work with a few corporates and they wanted it done in a very specific way. When we went and made that first transition, I think we got 16k of that. We paid and then they paid and it was all up in the air trying to get that deal which probably took a year to take effect.

Also getting everything as straight as you can. Weve worked with the local Chamber of Commerce, and theyve provided loads of different trading resources and courses. Theyve been really helpful to get our team to that point where theyre more like experts in shipping.

Here is the original post:

Exporting the Midlands in a post-Brexit world | TheBusinessDesk.com - The Business Desk