The trade mission included a Sunday icebreaker reception, a week-long schedule of business-to-business meetings in Australia, and coordination of all logistics such as hotels, ground transportation, and domestic flights as needed, group dinners, etc.
Background
The primary objective of the first Trade Mission was to introduce Wisconsin firms to potential partners and buyers for their products in Australia and to establish lasting business relationships in the region.
All meetings for this mission took place at local company offices, requiring significant logistical planning for the individual US programs.
The delegates were well received. The Foley office had a total of 42 individual meetings scheduled for all the delegates. It was a busy week indeed!
Though the official trade venture cities were Sydney and Melbourne, Trade Venture (TV) participants also travelled to additional cities on the east coast of Australia to pursue opportunities with prospective partners and customers located outside of the official scheduled TV cities. Additional cities visited included Moruya & Newcastle (New South Wales), Adelaide (South Australia), Brisbane (Queensland), Burnie (Tasmania).
The second Trade Mission involved 7 Wisconsin companies. Once again, the focus of the mission was to follow-up on established leads for those returning companies and to develop new export opportunities for the first time Wisconsin companies.
These projects involved the:
- Organisation of over 90 one-on-one business meetings;
- Management of a reception events;
- Coordination and planning of G2G programs and group briefing with industry associations; and
- In total our involvement in the project facilitated the interaction of approximately 200 local businesses and government agencies with the Wisconsin delegations. We also provided ongoing trade advisory, event management and logistical support for all joint official and business events.
How success was measured:
Following the completion of each mission a feedback survey was submitted, some key highlights include:
- Reported anticipated initial sales of ~US$1 million (2 months after mission completion);
- When asked how satisfied they were with the event programming/schedule the average score was 4.8/5;
- 100% of respondents anticipated future export sales as a result of their participation
Start and finish of the projects:
Each mission required approximately 4 months lead time.
