Under the Targeted Export Support Scheme (TESS), the company has now been awarded a grant of £5000 to translate its website into six languages and to help it exhibit at IPEX 2006, the biggest printing and graphics arts exhibition in the English-speaking world, which takes place from 4-11 April at the NEC in Birmingham.
The company also joined UK Trade & Investment's Passport to Export scheme in January 2005. The amount of new export business secured since then, and the number of new distributors appointed in the process, enabled Daco Solutions to consider exhibiting at IPEX for the first time.
UKTI International Trade Adviser Stephan Stahl, based at Business Link Humber, tailored the programme to suit the needs of Daco by advising on export strategy, helping the company to prepare the TESS application, and by bringing in other specialist advisers as appropriate.
One of these was Mary Cousins, export communications consultant for the region. Mary spent half a day with the company, reviewing in depth their international communication skills and systems, and the company's interfaces with overseas customers and agents.
Mark Laurence of Daco Solutions said after the review:
"We already had a pretty clear idea of what we wanted to achieve and how we were going to get there. But Mary came up with a few very useful suggestions that we had not considered. Most of these related to the development of the multi-lingual website. Other comments touched on managing cultural differences and ways of developing proactive international PR. We have already implemented some of the recommendations and plan to implement others over the next few months."
