Joined by our friends at Rochester PR and the Department for International Trade (DIT), during London Tech Week we teamed-up for the third time to host a practical panel session on how to successfully launch and have first-hand experience of growing a tech business in the UK.
Providing tech businesses from all sectors and countries of origin with a rare opportunity to learn from their peers about overcoming barriers when growing a tech business in the UK. The interactive event showcased a line-up of panellists from international tech businesses at varying stages of their UK market entry journey, sharing the advice and experiences with those looking to capitalise on the UK market.
A 100 strong crowd assembled at WeWork’s atrium in Holborn from destinations as diverse as Israel, Istanbul and Indonesia. Following an introduction by DIT’s Terry Mankertz, Joanna Dodd from Rochester kicked off proceedings by focusing on why ‘you need to treble everything when it comes to launching in London’ – time and budget, but also fun – and the ‘what, why, how, where and who’ of market entry from a communications and brand building perspective.
James Blakemore from JMB imparted the importance of securing early sales leads – discussing the potential routes to market, including partner networking, and how to capitalise on UK sales opportunities.
DIT’s Technology Specialist, Chris Moore then took up the moderator seat wider Q&A. Panellists included; Katie Lewis of The Accelerator Network, Salim Ziade from Dubai, Co-Founder of EasyCat, the world’s first catalogue sharing network, Helen Wang, CEO and board member of Chinese fintech company BBD, American Farhan Lalji, Partner at Rokk3r Lab, and Jonathan Partouche, President and Founder of French owned cyber protection company Origone which set up in the UK in March 2016.
After a highly engaging discussion and lots of questions from the audience, the key take-aways were summarised as:
Want to learn how to avoid the pitfalls of international trade? Then this is the event for you.
Following on the success and demand of previous years’, JMB and Partners are hosting an informative event during London Tech Week that will provide you with opportunity to learn from industry professionals and peers on how to maximise opportunities whilst avoiding the pitfalls of growing or launching a UK business.
Wednesday 14th June
10:00 – 12:00
WeWork, Waterhouse Square,
138 Holborn, London, EC1N 2SW
The event will provide tech businesses from any sector and country of origin with a rare opportunity to learn from and network with their peers and industry professionals. It’s the ideal event for any international company looking to start doing, or growing their business in London. This year’s panel also features a investor who can give advice for companies looking to secure funding.
DIT’s Technology Specialist, Chris Moore will moderate a panel which includes Salim Ziade from Dubai, Co-Founder of EasyCat, the world’s first catalogue sharing network and Helen Wang, CEO and board member of fast-growing Chinese fintech company BBD.
It’s the ideal event for any international company looking to start doing, or growing their business in London. Please note that due to space restrictions and to maintain the style of the event, this event is only open to non UK tech businesses.
The event is free to attend, however places are limited, so please book in advance to avoid disappointment.
Trading internationally can bring huge reward, but if in unfamiliar territory it can be a daunting prospect.
As a UK Government Export Champion JMB have extensive experience in international trade, both for ourselves and on behalf of our clients.
So to help inspire you to take the plunge and enter new markets or increase your international trade activity here are just some of the reasons why JMB Managing Director, James Blakemore thinks #ExportisGreat.
Export activity accounts for 75% of our business and is vital to our operations.
It not only provides us with a distinct competitive advantage within the UK and international markets, but has given us the ability to capitalise on differing market opportunities; reducing our reliance on the a single markets economic performance alone.
When we established over 10 years ago, our original business plan was to work with UK manufacturing businesses helping them diversify from Automotive into other sectors.
However, within the first 6 months of business a number of overseas clients had approached us to support them in penetrating the UK market. This initial success gave us the confidence to explore the export market further and totally transformed our business model to focus on targeting international clients.
The opportunity to work with clients from all over the world can be very exciting and rewarding.
Working with global clients gives our team members the opportunity to experience the differing business cultures, whilst working with some of the world’s latest innovations to support them in entering the UK and international markets. And of course there is the added bonus of travelling to countries you may not of otherwise thought to visit.
It’s been great travelling the world working with companies from all four corner of the globe. It’s a fantastic feeling to know that I now have friends from all over the world I can catch up with when travelling.
Fear of the unknown. Exporting for the first time can take you out of your comfort zone.
I think there is also the misconception that exporting might be too difficult. However, in some cases it’s easier than selling to companies in the UK.
Currently JMB trade with and export our services to 23 countries, which span across 6 continents.
Countries we export our services to include;
Slight cultural differences can lead to some initial misunderstanding – however the benefit of visiting the countries you export to is that very early on you get a clear understanding of what these differences are and how you can counteract them.
This would be when we signed our 1st international client, who was from Spain. We signed the contract at Heathrow airport on his return to Spain.
It was at that moment we knew that we had an added-value service that international companies wanted and needed.
Australia and New Zealand – over a two-week period we signed 5 customers.
Absolutely – Without our export activity we would not have been eligible for the Queens’ Award for Enterprise in International Trade, which we won in 2016.
Although the Award recognises our contribution in the international trade arena, it’s widely recognised by UK companies as a stamp of excellence, which has enabled us to extend our reach within the UK market as a leading B2B sales and lead generation partner.
Get on a plane and visit the market face-to-face. By meeting partners and potential customers, you will very quickly know if a market is right for you.
As a one of the UK governments champion for export and international trade the JMB Partnership is committed to helping promote export to companies not currently doing so and support them in capitalising on the international opportunities available. Remember, it’s easier than you think!!
If you’d like to learn more about how to generate sales in international markets, let’s talk and see where it may take you.
The JMB Partnership is delighted to have been appointed as Government Export Champion in a bid to inspire and support more organisations explore export.
Announced at the Midlands Engine Trade Summit last week, the ‘Midlands Engine Export Champion Programme’ sees JMB Managing Director, James Blakemore, along with 27 other business leaders from across the region offering their expertise and advice to inspire companies to export and support existing exporters looking to expand into new markets.
Speaking at the Summit in Birmingham, International Trade Minister Mark Garnier said:
Export Champion and MD of The JMB Partnership, James Blakemore said;
Over 27,000 businesses across the Midlands Engine exported nearly £40 billion worth of products to over 100 countries in 2015 and the Midlands is responsible for 24% of England’s manufacturing output with particular strengths in automotive, motorsport, aerospace and rail.
The creation of the Midlands Engine Export Champions Programme swiftly follows the launch of the government’s Midlands Engine Strategy.
An ambitious strategy to help the Midlands reach its full economic potential, the strategy was published last week as the Chancellor Philip Hammond visited the region the day after delivering his first Budget.
It includes significant investment in skills, connectivity and local growth, while it sets out how the government plans to drive the region’s huge potential and promote it to the world.
Over 600 delegates attended the Midlands Engine Trade Summit at the Vox Conference Centre where they participated in specialist workshops and heard first-hand the steps they can take to export their goods and services overseas.
In addition to engaging with SMEs and local businesses, the Midlands Engine Export Champions will promote the Department for International Trade’s Exporting is GREAT campaign and digital tool www.great.gov.uk which helps UK businesses break onto overseas markets. This innovative new programme will provide practical advice and support to drive further growth in exports.
If you are interested to find out how you could benefit and the support available, please visit contact us directly or visit www.great.gov.uk
JMB regularly attend Ecobuild and 2017 was no different. The iconic event is the prime platform to meet with existing JMB construction clients as well as new organisations looking to accelerate their B2B sales and or generate strategic partnerships.
To see the show highlights simply please visit Ecobuild.
Or if we missed you at the show and you would like to discuss how JMB can support you in generating B2B sales, simply drop us an email.
JMB were delighted to be formally invited by DIT Finland to present at the British Embassy in Finland.
Cloud computing is seen by the UK Government as a key technology enabler that underpins the continued development of emerging technologies and innovation for all businesses. Advances in internet of things (IoT), mobile applications, big data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) are being driven forward by cloud computing infrastructure, which promotes speed and collaboration.
To support the growth of this sector, DIT Finland hosted an informative session advising Finish organisations on how to scale-up and capitalise on opportunities in the UK.
This was a great opportunity to contribute to the innovative discussion on current IoT trends, and to network with like-minded entrepreneurs interested in the UK market.
The event heard from industry experts such as DIT Technology sector specialists, whilst JMB provide insight into generating sales in the UK, which was followed by JMB client, Giosg.com, who spoke about their experience of the UK market.
Finish-born Altogame is an innovative organisation who have developed an agile e-learning platform.
Looking to explore the UK market and bolster their client base, Altogame appointed JMB to launch the brand and gain a foothold in the UK through a comprehensive lead generation campaign.
As with any new client, JMB conducted a comprehensive briefing session, enabling JMB to become a vital extension of the internal team.
Our next step was to commence a comprehensive lead generation campaign to communicate Altogame’s capabilities and gain initial sales meetings.
This was conducted through telemarketing – building valuable relations with key prospects and extending Altogame’s reach whist identifying commercial opportunities.
Simultaneously to outbound activity, JMB managed all inbound web and telephone enquiries – providing a UK-base to instil trust and authenticity with their potential clients.
JMB secured a number of meetings with high profile organisations, including Unilever, Debenhams, the University of Aberdeen and CGI Group, to name a few.
In addition to the face-2-face meetings, JMB developed, coordinated and recruited prospects to participate in an online training demo where potential clients were able to participate in game-play and explore the e-learning platform.
The campaign enabled Altogame to not only extend their reach to potential prospects, but build their UK network and accelerate the UK market penetration.
We have been working with The JMB Partnership for over five years providing sales support which has enabled iASYS gain a major contract with one of the UK Premier Automotive Manufactures within 12 months and grow a large pipe line of potential leads.
JMB has strong expertise and commitment and has become an integrated part of the iASYS Technologies sales activity with a cost effective solution. I would recommend JMB Partnership to any company looking for a partner that delivers.
Puran Parekh, CEO, iASYS
SBS, Sundaram Business Services, is a global outsourcing company with over 1000 employees servicing over 100 clients across three continents.
Looking to bolster their UK market share, SBS appointed JMB to launch and establish the SBS brand within the UK market through a comprehensive lead generation campaign.
The objective was to target financial services and accountancy firms, to drive market engagement and increase uptake of a free trial, which would in-turn enable sales leads to assess the quality of the accountancy work undertaken.
JMB held several meetings with SBS and Senior Managers to define the proposition, identify the key objectives and gain knowledge of the organisation – enabling JMB to become an extension of the SBS team.
Our next step was to commence a comprehensive lead generation and outbound telemarketing campaign to communicate SBS’s capabilities whilst increasing uptake of the free trial with a view to converting to paying clients.
Although a global organisation servicing clients internationally, many of SBS’s operations were preformed from India. Therefore questions were raised about the confidentiality of clients’ work once outsourced overseas.
The JMB team built a professional rapport with prospects, to instil trust and credibility which was reinforced by the experience of SBS and their existing partnerships.
Within a brief period JMB successfully secured over 21 free trials, which enabled SBS to demonstrate their capabilities and overcome any misconceptions.
This consequently lead to the direct sign-up of a number of key UK clients.
This activity not only accelerated their UK B2B sales acquisition, but enabled SBS to create a secure foundation and sales pipeline for their continued UK growth.
So enough about us. Let's talk about you.
Whether looking to increase sales, enter a new market or find your perfect business partner, we can help you achieve your B2B growth objectives.
