FEATURE
With a considerable number of international trade missions setting off from Ireland each year, TIERNAN CANNON explores their role and whether or not they provide any meaningful results for Irish businesses.
36
036 InBusiness Q4 2017_Trade Mission.indd 36
or companies based in a small island economy such as Ireland, exporting overseas presents a significant opportunity for long-term success. For obvious reasons, however, the Irish case has become more complex of late, as the future of its trading relationship with its neighbour and biggest trading partner is called into question. As attempts to define Ireland and the UK’s future trading relationship continues, many Irish businesses are now looking further afield in search of new markets. Trade missions can be seen as an early step in this endeavour, allowing businesses to travel abroad to meet and forge relationships with new potential buyers and sellers. Trade missions tend to be organised by one or more governmental agency and are often sector-specific, bringing a group of delegates offering certain products or services to a foreign country in need of those particular products or services. Irish trade missions are mostly run by a variety of state and semi-state organisations, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Enterprise Ireland, IDA, Bord Bia and Tourism Ireland. While trade missions can prove to be an essential step for an Irish company attempting to break into a new market, it should be thought of as just that – a single step in the overall process. That’s according to Leo McAdams, Divisional Manager for International Sale and Partnering at Enterprise Ireland, who explains that companies should by no means expect the deals to come in immediately after a quick meet and greet. “A company’s export strategy is obviously long-term and being on a trade mission is a part of that,” he suggests. “We would always say to companies that a trade mission is just one piece [of an export strategy]. They need to be back in the market again and again and again afterwards. It’s not just that they go on a trade mission, secure a deal and then go on the next one.” Trade missions make for a good early step in a company’s export strategy, but even getting to this point can prove challenging. For those businesses without experience of trade missions, it can be difficult to know InBUSINESS | Q4 2017
22/12/2017 11:19