Trade Mission
One of our main annual activities is the organisation of the International Trade Mission.
The Trade Mission is a project for 2/3-year students that brings together the theoretical knowledge they have gained in a 100% practical, hands-on experience.
In the past we have had missions to Queretaro (Mexico), Istanbul, Budapest, Bilbao, Durham, Bangkok and Lisbon.
Students start during the autumn, finding a ‘local’ company that would be interested in looking into the feasibility of exporting their product/service to the target city/country.
The students work with their company and the relevant external agencies, getting to know and understand the product/service, looking into the logistics of exporting. They research the target city/country, look into possible prospects, existing competition, market potential etc. They are assigned local students (from a partner university of the city) to help them with their prospecting – these students help give an ‘eyes-on’ view of the market, the likely prospects, and of course help with any language difficulties.
This work all leads up to a week in March where the students and accompanying lecturers travel to the target city.
During that week, the students pitch their product/service to an audience and jury of their peers and lecturers. Face to face prospection takes place – contacts they have made remotely are followed up, appointments taken, negotiating, pitching, networking – everything that happens in ‘normal’ international business life.
Then D-Day – the professional trade fair. Students set up their stand, greet the prospects, pitch their product and do as much business for their company as possible.
The 2021 edition was a virtual one (to Lisbon): remote research, remote market studies, remote prospecting, remote trade fair, but also no travel expenses, no hotel rooms, no physical networking. Remote intercultural activities were also organised and a Facebook page was set up.
The trade fair was organised via Airmeets, a professional, online trade fair platform. Lecturers and students learned how to set up their booth, how to run promotional videos, how to pitch, how to network, chat with colleagues and prospects - all remotely.
An experience for everyone concerned. How lucky those students were – the shape of things to come? Quite possibly, so skills and techniques learned, that is for sure. However, the general consensus is that nothing beats a face-to-face mission – and we are all keeping our fingers tightly crossed that once we get to March 2022, we will be able to hold the mission on-site, physically – wherever that may be ...
Target city and country to be discussed and decided at the next Marketing and International Trade working group meeting later this month.
