To bolster B.C. businesses’ exporting activities, the provincial government has transformed a vendor database that helped local companies secure Olympic contracts into a communications tool to help local businesses break into export markets.
The one-time 2010 Business Network, credited with helping its members land more than $720 million in Olympic-related contracts, has been re-branded the B.C. Business Network.
Ken Veldman, manager of business services and Olympic legacy with the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation, explained that the 2010 Business Network was set up as way to help B.C. businesses find Olympic-related opportunities.
“What we were trying to do was make a real made-in-B.C. supply chain for the Winter Olympics.”
The database allowed local businesses to profile and market their business offerings to the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) and foreign companies in town for the Games. The province, he said, marketed the database to VANOC and Olympic-related foreign companies such as sponsors and broadcasters.
After the Olympics wrapped up, Veldman said, the government realized it had created an effective communications tool with post-Olympics potential.
“We had 4,500 companies that we could slice and dice, based on the opportunity, and send those it was relevant to the information to say, ‘Hey, here’s an opportunity.’”
Veldman said the companies were self-selected, aggressive and bent on growth. Post-Olympics, he said, many were interested in international opportunities.
That, he said, aligned well with one of the ministry’s ongoing challenges: getting more B.C. businesses engaged in export markets, whether international or simply out of province.
“The stats right now say that something like 1.5% of small businesses in B.C. are exporters, and that’s a really small number.”
The result, he said, is the transformation of the database into the B.C. Business Network. Veldman said that unlike its predecessor platform, the new tool won’t serve principally as a vendor database, but as a way for B.C. businesses to receive targeted information to help them start or expand exporting.
By signing up for the free tool, businesses can receive e-mails with:
- customized business intelligence specific to their industry and markets, such as the latest deals, statistics, economic news and market trends;
- invitations to workshops, information sessions and trade events; and
- referrals from the ministry when international clients are seeking products, services and investment opportunities in B.C.
Veldman said the tool allows the ministry to target its communications.
“If you’re in, to pick one at random, the clean-technology sector and you’re looking at getting into the Asian market, that’s going to be there as part of your profile, so we’re going to send you information that’s related to clean technology and the markets that you’re interested in and we’re going to invite you to programs that are along those lines,” he said.
“It’s going to be about getting the right information to the right people at the right time and making sure that it’s a value-added service for its members and that we can move more companies through that pipeline to become successful exporters.”
Veldman said that while the B.C. Business Network will still be publicly available online as a vendor database, that will no longer be the tool’s core value to businesses, as the ministry won’t be marketing it to possible customers as it did the Olympic platform.
“The issue is in the marketing dollars and because it’s so cross sector and in so many different markets, it would just be so hard to focus [the marketing].”
Velman said there are currently 4,900 B.C. businesses registered in the database, and he expects to see some companies leave and others join as the ministry spreads the word about the platform’s new goals and functionality.
Sandra Nicolas, trade services co-ordinator for Small Business BC (SBBC), said that most B.C. businesses are intimidated at the idea of exporting, and she sees far more companies coming to SBBC with importing plans rather than exporting plans.
“[Exporting requires] lots of investment and is time-consuming and maybe [requires] hiring someone else who has the skills or the knowledge or even the language.”
She assessed that the B.C. Business Network could help bolster companies’ interest in exporting by: saving businesses Internet search time through directly communicating key export-related information and updates; and by stretching their horizons by presenting them with new opportunities.
Dave Ling is a director of Vancouver-based startup Medallion Seafood Exports, which this month is starting up operations with its first trial shipment of live Dungeness crabs to China. He said the company has thus far relied on a packing company to help Medallion clear exporting red tape and broker deals with Chinese buyers.
Ling said export-focused communications from the provincial government would be valuable to Medallion as he looks to grow the company.
“Any kind of new information would be useful.”