• Home
• About
  • Background
  • Mission and Aims
  • What We Do - Influence
  • What We Do - Engage
  • The Team
  • The Directors
• Our Regions
  • About East Solent
  • About South Solent
  • About West Solent
  • About North Solent
• Action Groups
  • About Action Groups
  • Digital Southampton
  • Direct2Success
  • Future Southampton
  • International Business
  • Marketing Southampton
  • Olympics Legacy
  • Public Affairs
  • SIBN
  • Solent Maritime
  • Sustainable Solent
  • Transport Alliance
  • Volunteer Alliance
• News
  • Business Solent
  • Champion & Associate
  • Solent Region News
• Events
  • Events Calendar
  • Event Photo Gallery
• Champions
  • Champion Programme
  • Champion Benefits
  • Becoming a Champion
  • Champions Directory
  • Champion Offers
  • Champion News
  • Sign Up
• Associates
  • Associate Programme
  • Associate Benefits
  • Becoming an Associate
  • Associates Directory
  • Associate News
  • Sign Up
• Partners
• Contact
• Join
• Login

News

Businesses and organisations across the region should look to global markets in 2012. That’s the advice of Lewis Scott, Regional Director for the South east of england UK Trade & Investment (UKTI).

“To grow both the country and as companies we need to be trading with emerging economies such as India, China, Brazil and Thailand that are growing at eight, nine or 10 per cent a year while the euro zone continues to be in the doldrums,” he said.

With increasing uncertainty in the domestic and european markets, many Solent based firms are looking to broaden their business horizons in the coming year.

In the Champion Spotlight feature this month, Mike Gawthorne, Group Managing Director for specialist recruitment firm and Solent Champion ARM, said he would be looking at developing business in global markets in 2012.

Mike said: “Growth is key. We have expansion plans this year to increase our headcount by a further 50 and to take our recruitment business to an international marketplace.”

During 2011 the Solent International Business Alliance (SIBA) was formed to develop the opportunities in other international markets with an initial focus on China.

Chaired by Norman Armstrong, Partner from Grant Thornton the group is looking at strengthening the existing links across the region and assisting SMes to develop their China strategies in conjunction with UKTI and the China Britain Business Council.

Norman said: “I’ve been supporting businesses entering the Chinese market for over fi ve years now and have seen a huge increase in interest and investment in the last 12 months.

“We have some excellent historic links, such as the relationships between Southampton and Qingdao and many existing trading relationships both to and from China. The key now is to leverage those to benefi t businesses across the region.”

During 2012 SIBA aims to extend the support to companies looking to enter the Chinese market and to strengthen the business to business links in specific sectors.

“We should not limit our focus to China and India though and recent research by Grant Thornton suggests that Latin America, specifically Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico are more optimistic about growth prospects.

“With that in mind SIBA will be looking at how to promote the region for both inbound and outbound investment and develop a platform for Solent Champions to communicate opportunities and knowledge across a range of international markets,” said Norman.

The Solent India Business Network (SIBN) also continues to go from strength to strength and this year promises even more activity.

SIBN was set up in 2009 by Professor Adam Wheeler, the Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton and Amarjit Singh, a commercial solicitor at Dutton Gregory, to promote the Indian business community in the Solent region and foster links and opportunities between regional businesses and organisations in India.

Professor Wheeler explained that SIBN has signed an agreement with the Indian-based British Business Group (Pune Chapter) to collaborate on promoting trade relations and investment between the two organisations.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Pune in September, covering links across a range of markets and sectors.

Pune is a second-tier emerging city in India and cultural capital of the state of Maharashtra.

“We are preparing to take further delegations to India and in 2012 we are planning to host an inbound delegation from India.

“The visit will include key sector meetings with counterparts and will focus around providing an overview of the strengths of this region and the tangible business opportunities,” said Amarjit Singh.

Lewis Scott from UKTI offered real insight into the scale of the Indian market when he spoke at a recent Working Lunch arranged by Business Solent.

He explained the opportunities were many and on a vast scale - for instance, there are 545 million mobile phones in India.

Mr Scott said: “Price Waterhouse Coopers estimate India has 25 per cent of the world’s under-25s – and 80 per cent of the population is under 45 years of age.”

Sally Lynskey, CeO of Business Solent said: “It’s encouraging that many Solent based businesses are looking to emerging markets to develop their business in 2012.

“Both the Solent International Business Alliance and SIBN are making great strides in building relationships between businesses in the Solent region and global markets.

“In a relatively short time they have created links and are building relationships that will benefit business in the Solent region.”

Business Solent News