Technology offers a building Bloc for smarter global trade

Derby-based Bloc Digital specialises in digital creative technologies to produce visualisations and immersive environments that will generate a greater market impact for businesses in both the UK and overseas. Co-founder Keith Cox speaks to Jasmine Thompson about how the company’s technology is enabling businesses across the globe to work smarter.

What does your company do?

Bloc Digital designs, creates and deploys digital visualisations, immersive environments and web app technology for businesses across the globe.

We combine digital creative technologies across design, media, software and internet of things (IoT) to develop products and services that enable our clients to work smarter, be more connected, and have greater marketing impact with their customers and markets.

We have a growing portfolio of world-leading manufacturing and industrial organisations, including Rolls-Royce, JCB and Kongsberg Maritime. We’re experiencing growth within power generation, learning and advanced science sectors, as well as developing new markets in multi-media, broadcast and digital marketing fields.

What does your international trade operation involve?

Our global reach is continually increasing – with the past five years involving significant growth in opportunities within international industrial markets. As a partner with numerous blue-chip companies, we have a strong reputation and experience of working in international markets, providing marketing content and collateral alongside digital solutions and platforms that meet the specific needs of international audiences.

As well as developing our own business opportunities, we are also supporting our clients to increase their sales and marketing impact internationally in Asia, North and South America, and emerging markets in Africa.

Our animations and digital brand marketing solutions are increasingly attracting the attention of US-based businesses. As a result, we’re delighted to have just established Bloc Digital Inc to unlock further opportunities for growth within North America.

Which are your biggest markets and how would you compare your relationships between each of these?

Geographically, the US is a key and growing market for us. In terms of sectors, it is across the global engineering, manufacturing and industrial markets where we are seeing our sustained growth. A key factor in this is the development of our complete in-house capability – from design, 3D modelling and creative production, through to digital solutions and platform build.

We don’t just provide high-quality creative services, but we also understand their operational processes, products and technologies. This ensures our own products and services are highly relevant to their needs.

Central to this is our expertise in the engineering field and the strong client relationships we have built. Our communication, collaboration and delivery of projects, sometimes working with global teams across continents and locations, has proved that geography is not a barrier to businesses accessing cutting-edge technologies or highquality animations and visualisations.

How have the events of the past couple of years affected your importing and exporting activity? Due to the digital technology nature of our business and operations, we were in the lucky position to have not been directly impacted by physical restrictions in the global movement of materials during the past couple of years.

In the unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic, one or two of our global clients did temporarily reappraise their focus, which had a very short-term knock-on in terms of the scheduling of some of the new projects we may have been expecting in early 2020/21.

We’ve built our business on adapting and innovation, and we worked with our clients to support them to actively shift their operations and marketing activity into the “virtual” sphere.

As our clients and the wider marketing industry have emerged from the pandemic, we are witnessing an increasing desire to re-position

Upcoming International Trade Training Courses

Inward and outward processing

DATE: 19 April

TIME: 9-12.30

COST: £160 + VAT

Introduction to methods of obtaining inward and outward processing relief from customs duty and VAT on international transactions

CDS customs overview

DATE: 20 April

TIME: 9-2

COST: £349 + VAT

Learn the roles and responsibilities around the customs declaration service (CDS), which will be the long-term replacement for the current customs handling imports and export freight (CHIEF) platform

Rules of origin

DATE: 20 April

TIME: 9-12.30

COST: £160 + VAT

Learn about the certifications required by customs officials around the world to demonstrate the origin of a product, which determines how tariffs are decided

A beginners guide to import procedures

DATE: 25 April

TIME: 9-12.30

COST: £160 + VAT

Get a high-level overview of the import process from a practical perspective. It also includes a practical session on creating clearance instructions from a pre-defined set of trade documents these digital-first capabilities into hybrid operations featuring both digital and in-person events and experiences.

Our combination of interactive technology and commercially-available hardware, alongside our established animation, digital environments and modelling capabilities, is now opening new commercial opportunities within the industrial and manufacturing sectors.

What made you turn to the Chamber for support and how has this helped?

The Chamber’s international connections and insights were highly valuable to Bloc Digital as we began to really penetrate US and Asian markets. The support enabled us to get right into the heart of these markets, in specific locations and industrial hubs.

The Chamber’s credibility and experience in global trade also enabled us to have the visibility and impact to make a difference and establish strong working relationships.

On a wider note, the Chamber’s active championing of East Midlands skills, innovation and entrepreneurship on the international stage is sustaining opportunities for growth not just for now, but also for the next generation of employees and business leaders.

Understanding commodity coding

DATE: 4 May

TIME: 9-12

COST: £160 + VAT

Navigate the complex and difficult international system for coding products for customs purposes

Export foundations

DATE: 10 May

TIME: 9-4

COST: £285 + VAT

Get an overall picture of how the many elements of international trade fit together, including hands-on experience of the administration involved with getting an export consignment ready

Prices listed are exclusively for East Midlands Chamber members Book on to courses at bit.ly/EMCinternationaltraining