Today, a product prepared or designed by a particular company may not fulfil the specific needs of consumers. As a result the business plan of the firm collapses. The product demands in domestic market are so varied that firms would like to export those products to different countries in anticipation that such items may be acceptable in foreign markets.

As the global market is converging fast with the globalisation of production, R&D and movement of professionals, sourcing resources considered as one of the most important tools of exports. All these factors generate interest or propel local or domestic producers to go global.

Exporting issues

India is currently recognised as a robust service based economy, contributing around 55 per cent to its GDP and having a large share of service exports in the world. It has outpaced its key competitor China in this sector. However, in the field of technology-intensive manufacturing area, it has not been able to replicate that kind of success. So for new and young entrepreneurs, the challenges ahead are many and formidable.

The advantage with India is that it’s a low cost destination for foreign investors and more importantly, it has a huge pool of talented and skilled english speaking professionals, who take full advantage of current global situation unlike China. Inflow of foreign direct investment and advent of MNCs in large numbers are helping the economy to grow bigger.

India already has a strong base in traditional exports like textiles, handicrafts, gems and jewellery, and global demand in these sectors are huge in proportion. India with right kind of technology and capital coupled with rich cultural traditions and ethnicity can exploit those opportunities. Young entrepreneurs or fledgling firms have to develop technology, capital and skill base in order to export in a big way in these sectors.

One of the biggest challenges the world export is facing, is the issue of transparency. India  has a big advantage over China, and significantly the whole world recognises this. It’s for the Indian government to bring in more transparency reforms to score over China.

Documentation is another important aspect of conducting export business.  One must take these lessons seriously in order to be successful. It involves specification of demands, products, bureaucratic procedures, monetary value, etc. When one foreign partner or buyer looks at these details, he gets convinced about the functioning of the company or the young firm, its rules, its attitude and its desire to export in a transparent manner.

Logistics, another important component of exports, is often considered a problem in India by exporters. Those who wish to be successful exporters should try to overcome this problem by developing a positive attitude. Whatever infrastructure is available, it should try to take full advantage of it and performs.

One does not have to depend on the government or public sector totally to provide you with the right kind of infrastructure. Some amount of infrastructural development can always be taken up by young entrepreneurs or a group of private enterprises or big corporate sectors.

Strategies

India is well recognised in the international market as a vibrant parliamentary democracy, a country practising and instilling value to the issue of transparency in every sector of public transactions.

Especially at a time when world business is so competitive, such factor gets lot of weight age in the eyes of foreign buyers, as a result foreign investments troop in and country’s export markets flourish. India is well poised to take full advantage of this situation. In addition, the developed world is also intimidated to a certain extent by the economic might of China and is, therefore, looking at India as a convenient alternative for importing a wide range of technology intensive manufacturing products.

This tag of reliability and transparency can help in a major way the Indian exporting vendors. Promotion and substantial use of “Made in India” brand may be pursued vigorously to capture large chunks of the export market. However, companies need to be alert in this area as the overseas markets at times underestimate Indian competency and the Indian standards in matters of health, safety and environment (HSE).

The issue of HSE is currently recognised as a major non-tariff barrier (NTB) in the multilateral global trading regime. Developing countries are experiencing this to be a significant hindrance for their exports.

Maintaining standards relating to HSE at par with international markets or satisfying the foreign buyers is an impending challenge for Indian vendors. Therefore, the Indian companies need to reflect on their standards in the preliminary stages of a deal with an overseas company to the best of their advantages and fully satisfy their requirements by displaying the practicing norms in terms of health, the safety standards in relation to work atmosphere and confirmed standards relating to environment in their plants or working units.

Due to cultural interface, Indians are many a time stereotyped simply as Asians. Therefore, the “on-your-face” strategy that the manufacturing exports sector can adopt is to set themselves apart through diligence, reliability, transparency in dealings and strict adherence to HSE norms.

To differentiate themselves from the already operating players, the Indian companies should play up their tag of transparency and develop a system of continuous feedback to their foreign partners offering an export deal. This feedback can be in the form of:

*Documenting major activities
*Collecting testimonials and displaying them
*Selling solutions not products
*Differentiating themselves from other players
*Creating allies in the overseas market in the form of partners

Small and promising Indian companies with a vision to export their technology products need to put up gigantic efforts and formulate concerted strategies in planning their entry into the export market. The export market is well spread out and may actually look tempting for big vendors, but with the right strategies, small vendors can go places and create a share.

The author is with Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi and to contact email: anilkanungo@yahoo.com