What is an export group or an export consortium?

Several export companies with complementary products uniting to open a new international market and thus sharing experience, effort and cost and reinforcing at the same time their product offer.

What are the factors defining which kind of export strategy to set up, on their own versus as a group?

Some of the factors that need to be studied in order to ease the decision making are : the previous export experience, the existence of complementary products to our own, the difficulty of the target market, to know if we have an extensive or reduced range of products, the investment capacity, the capacity to meet special orders, the involvement of the hierarchy in the internationalization process, the size of the company, the  knowledge in terms of international marketing and the possibility of establishing synergies and partnerships with other companies, etc.

What are the features?

The export groups are based on voluntary cooperation between companies that have complementary products, which will strengthen the global offer, and common objectives. In fact they coexist on the market during the time of canvassing, sharing a budget and a business plan. Thanks to the exporter group they can also divide the risks and the costs.

What are the advantages?

There are many upsides and it’s important to take them into account: an exporter group allows you to share experience with other companies of the same sector, with the same needs and problems, to reduce the costs of international canvassing, to increase economies of scale, to reinforce the global offer and to have a better impact on the export chain with lower costs in terms of human resources.

Are there any downsides?

As in any decision we make, even though being positive, there can also be a few downsides. In that particular case, we can underline the loss of autonomy and the tensions that can arise from situations of misunderstandings from differences in the conceptions of making new business, the image of the company and the working patterns.

Other related information:

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B2B meetings between Spanish companies and French sales agents

Barcelona export leads a subcontracting Export group to sell in the French market