Open to Export have launched a completely free intuitive online planning tool to help businesses who plan on selling goods and services overseas.

We spoke to the team about the Open to Export Action Plan Competition

So the autumn has arrived and the summer holidays are done and dusted, and there’s that back-to-school feeling as businesses brace themselves for a busy few months. One of the big areas that many SMEs will be looking at this autumn is their international strategy, especially as the likely ramifications of the UK leaving the EU begin to unfold.

It’s vital that businesses start planning their strategy for Brexit now. Businesses should be using the next few months to think carefully about what markets they can enter and whether they should be building a presence in Europe or beyond. And as ever with exporting, companies should be giving due consideration to the resources and skills needed to make their international strategy crystallise.

Creating an Export Action Plan is a great way to do this. This online tool, created by Open to Export, helps businesses to think through their export strategy step-by-step, from selecting a market to delivery and documentation. It gives businesses prompts about what key areas of the export process need to be accounted for, and gives businesses useful resources for doing the market research they need to do to get their market entry right.

It’s already helped many SMEs to take their next steps in their international strategy.

Michele Conway, Sales Director of Pasta Foods, said the following after using the tool:

“The plan has made us consider the priorities for our business and enabled us to strategically look at where to focus our efforts first, we’ve already achieved some quick wins – and the support from the Open to Export team has been brilliant.”

Nikky Hall, Creative Director at Polkadoodles, added:

“I was impressed how the plan took me through the practical stages and kept me focused and on track. It also gave me clarity on key issues such as documentation and capital outlay. As a result of the plan, I made changes for the better which included changing the packaging of our products into different languages and learning valuable things about shipment.”

Though Brexit may make exporting seem a little daunting, there will definitely continue to be opportunities for the UK’s exporters – should they take the appropriate time to plan and do thorough research. The Export Action Plan makes this process a lot easier!

You can start your Export Action Plan today and if you complete it before the end of September, you can enter Open to Export’s competition in which one company could win £3000 towards their export strategy.