Utah companies are urged to export
Small and medium-size businesses can succeed in exporting — and learn to avoid mistakes already suffered by some bigger companies, according to the executives, who spoke here at the seventh annual Rural Business Conference hosted by U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and the Utah Rural Development Council.
"A small company can export," said Stanley Rees, director of the Miller Global Business Center at Salt Lake Community College. "If you have this product that is doing well here in the United States or here in Utah, there's no reason that it wouldn't do well internationally."
Rees said some companies believe they can survive simply by selling in Salt Lake County or selling in Utah or California or Arizona. But companies now are "needing to compete internationally" to sell their products, he said.
David Fiscus, director of U.S. commercial services for the U.S. Export Assistance Center, said that jobs related to exporting pay 20 percent more, on average, than those not related to shipping across borders. The reasons for exporting are obvious, he said, because 70 percent of the world's purchasing power and 95 percent of its population are outside the United States.
Brett Heimburger, regional director for Asia for the Governor's Office of Economic Development's International Trade and Diplomacy Office, said many Utah companies have produced innovations with applications in international markets, with many "hidden-gem companies" just now being noticed on the international scene. Life sciences, information technology, agriculture and nutritional supplements are among industries doing well overseas, he said.
Utah's export strength is growing, with trade rising from $4.7 billion in 2004 to $7.8 billion in 2007. The figure for January was over $1 billion, a record high. Utah is second among Mountain West states for exporting and No. 31 among states overall.
Companies looking to expand their markets should realize help is available, often at little or no cost, the speakers said. GOED, for example, can help companies evaluate markets. The U.S. Export Assistance Center provides export counseling, market research, trade events and introductions to qualified buyers.
"The rewards are vast, but the learning curve can seem daunting and, again, steep at times," Fiscus said.
Heimburger said the opportunities for market expansion are "enormous."
"In the increasingly flattening world, that is a very important way to grow your business," he said.
Utah has mostly small to medium-size companies, which don't have same resources and capital that the large multinational firms do to learn how to do international business and to make big, costly mistakes, he said.
"The average company in Price doesn't have the same capital that P&G (Procter & Gamble) does to figure out how to play in China," Heimburger said.
"GM and GE and Wal-Mart — some of these large corporations that are doing well internationally — have learned some very hard lessons along the way," he added. "The road is littered with road-kill small companies that have unfortunately gone into some of these markets not fully understanding the risks and challenges that are associated with those opportunities."
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com
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