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BUSINESS connect MAGAZINE
December/January 2022
exporting
Made in the UK, incremental development of the 2018 Export Strategy has 4 key aims:
• Encourage and inspire businesses that can export but have not yet, or have just started. • Inform by providing information, advice, and practical assistance. • Connect exporters to potential buyers and markets. • Finance will be central to the offer. Exporting is getting a makeover with the launch of a new slogan, new logo and more importantly a new 12-point plan to help the UK reach £1 Trillion in exports from every part of the country. This
There is much to like in this new policy, but for me the key ambition is that Exporting should become a natural part of business, not something that is tacked on as an afterthought. This is a message I have expounded for years and
raised regularly in the development of the previous export strategy. One of my key mantras is that “Exporting is just Selling”; it should be natural for businesses to consider selling to new markets regardless of whether they are in the UK or not. Education is critical to this and the Export Academies will be expanded, but it should be on the syllabus of every business studies course or degree.
Many businesses get into exporting without even realising it and once they do, can grow a substantial income stream. One of my favourite examples of this is my fellow Export Champion Maria Whitehead of Hawkshead Relish Company in the Lake District. Maria has a wonderful shop in the middle of Hawkshead
and became an exporter when their online shop started to attract orders from far and wide. They now export across the world.
Another exporter, just down the road from Maria is Windermere Lake Cruises; simply by targeting oversees visitors to the region, they have developed an export income for their lake cruises as part of the UK’s massive tourism sector. Export Champions have an important role in the new strategy. The Export Champion movement, introduced into the North West of England as an initiative by the local office of the Department for International Trade in 2013, and having now expanded nationwide, is targeted for further development as part of the plan. Export Champions are companies,
