Fall 2000 The Greening of Montana The World of E-Commerce Business to Business From Bench to Business Rocky Mountain Global Virtual Corporations Forecasting Montana's
Economic Future |
Rocky Mountain Global by Caroline Lupfer Kurtz The Montana World Trade Center can help. Housed in UM’s School of Business Administration, MWTC a year ago formed a new initiative called Rocky Mountain Global, the sole purpose of which is to provide the marketing expertise needed to match Montana sellers with buyers from Beijing to Borneo. Simply identifying potential foreign customers is not enough, says RMG senior manager Fraser McLeay. He and membership services manager Brigitta Miranda-Freer spend time evaluating a business’ product specifications, costs and production capacity and then finding and analyzing appropriate markets. RMG staff also participate in trade shows to promote specific Montana products, and they can handle export documentation, logistics, trade regulation, compliance and payment problems. Montana products currently marketed worldwide with the help of RMG include Valley of the Moon premium water, Montana mint, Wheat Montana specialty grains and flours, Cream of the West cereals and granola snacks and Montola high-oleic safflower oil. “RMG works with businesses in the state that are ready to go the extra step [into global sales] but lack the resources to develop the markets themselves,” McLeay says. “The aim is to become their global marketing arm.” McLeay and Miranda-Freer look for ways to work with groups of businesses at once so that RMG’s sales commissions and consulting fees can be split among a pool of clients. The cost for using RMG will be less than what it would cost a company to hire its own similarly qualified marketing person, McLeay says.
Ripe for picking “We joined the MWTC looking for overseas markets,” Lukes says. He believes the RMG team has been effective is supplying numerous leads he otherwise would not have had time to find. He is confident that some percentage of these contacts will result in sales. “Everybody wants their own proof that the stuff works under their particular soil conditions and so on,” Lukes says. Samples have been sent to 37 countries for evaluation, and some countries are more serious than others, he says. Lukes is most optimistic about Green Agro in Pakistan, which has expressed interest in becoming a regional distributor for NEB. He recently sent 96 liters of the product to Green Agro for demonstration on several crops, including beans, peas and wheat. Going global is time-consuming but makes sense in light of figures that show world trade growing four times faster than the U.S. gross domestic product. According to the Montana World Trade Center, small and midsized companies’ exports are rising fastest — more than 30 percent in the last 10 years, or about $200 billion each year. Services like Rocky Mountain Global and others of the MWTC are helping Montana companies get a piece of the pie. “Will they [RMG] do me some good?” asks Lukes. “I believe they will.” For more information about the services of Rocky Mountain Global, e-mail fraser@mwtc.org or call (406) 243-6982. |
