Anita Huberman, CEO of the Surrey Board of Trade, looks to European boards of trade (BOTs) and chambers of commerce (COCs) as examples of business advocacy organizations that are getting it right.
The Surrey board’s new international program is taking many cues directly from COCs and BOTs in London and Bristol in the United Kingdom.
Take Bristol, for example: its chamber has a team of 25 to 30 full-time staff focused solely on drumming up international business for its members.
That’s almost three times Surrey board’s total staff.
In Europe, many COCs and BOTs have mandatory membership, so their resources are more plentiful than the Surrey board’s, but Huberman thinks BOTs and COCs in Surrey and elsewhere in Canada aren’t doing enough to encourage and help their members look to international markets for business.
“The chambers and boards in Europe … one of their main mandates, in addition to networking and government advocacy, is international trade for their membership,” said Huberman. “In my travels, in my search and discussions with my Canadian chamber colleagues … no one is doing what we’re envisioning.”
She noted that Surrey’s international program will leverage a City of Surrey business junket to India in February and another to India that the board has planned for April.
With both the Surrey BOT and the Surrey municipal government taking strong positions on the importance of international markets, Surrey could become a hub in the Lower Mainland for international business.
Not that other Lower Mainland municipalities are falling behind. The City of Vancouver recently returned from a business mission to China. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson continues to highlight the deals and partnerships that Vancouver companies made in China.
Surrey Mayor Diane Watts said the municipality’s trade mission to India in February stems from conclusions reached at the Surrey regional economic summit in October.
There, thought leaders highlighted shifting polarities, in which the United States’ influence is diminishing, while India’s and China’s influence is rising.
“In 2005, one of my major thrusts and goals was to really raise the profile of Surrey,” said Watts. “And through our economic summit we’ve done that.”
She said Surrey’s India trip – a first for the city – is the next step. About 30 companies are thus far slated to join the city in India.
Surrey has narrowed the mission’s members down to key growth sectors: clean technology, film and entertainment, information technology and education.
Those businesses will be matched with sector counterparts in India.
“We have natural relationships with India,” said Watts. “With those relationships, we can certainly position ourselves and, in particular, our business, to be better advantaged than others in India.”
Three years ago, Surrey’s BOT began inviting representatives from consulates in the Lower Mainland to Surrey to speak about the business environment and opportunities in their respective countries.
Given that consulates and BOTs/COCs have similar mandates to promote business, Huberman was surprised to find that few of the consulate members had ever been to Surrey.
To ensure it wasn’t the last time, the Surrey board recently signed letters of understanding with each of the 12 consulates to promote two-way trade, investment, economic co-operation and international marketing opportunities between Surrey businesses and businesses in each consulate’s country.
In addition, the Surrey board is establishing an international trade centre in 2011 that it hopes will not only be a hub for local businesses with international aspirations, but also a gateway to international markets for businesses and business advocacy organizations around the Lower Mainland.
Surrey board’s international program, which has a $500,000 budget in its first year, will next look to connect with COCs/BOTs in the countries whose consulates it recently partnered with.
Huberman views the COC/BOT movement as one big network.
For example, the Surrey board is affiliated with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Ottawa, which is affiliated with the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris.
Through this network, a business in Surrey should, through the Surrey board, be able to connect with businesses that are members of any BOT/COC around the world.
“The chamber of commerce and board of trade movement is connected globally, and we want to find a way to build upon that,” she said.
“In North America, there is no chamber or board that has really used our strategic alliances around the world.”
Surrey’s Indian power play appears to have anticipated a report last week from the Canadian International Council. It found that “Canadian business and government have been slow to embrace the Indian market and need to wake up before it’s too late.”
Interestingly, the report from last week noted that the branding of Canada in India has been all the more complicated by the “blizzard” of provincial visits and trade missions, each with its mini-provincial brand.
As well, “executives complain that trade missions are often little more than photo ops for politicians and signing ceremonies for existing deals.”
But Watts said Surrey’s India mission is not about political opportunism.
And it’s very different from sister-city relationships, which tend to focus on cultural exchanges.
“It’s a specific trade mission with specific goals in mind in terms of bringing business here and expanding local businesses to India.”
Added Huberman, “When you go on a mission it’s about building relationships.”
She said Surrey’s international centre will help ensure those relationships are maintained when the mission returns home.
“You come back, you have the relationships and you build the business.”