Details of the project
Coordination and delivery of back-to-back Trade Missions from the US State of Wisconsin (2018 & 2019). The Trade Missions included icebreaker reception on Sunday, a week’s schedule of business-to-business meetings in Australia, coordination of all logistics including hotels, ground transportation, domestic flights as necessary, group dinners etc.
Background
The 2018 WEDC Global Trade Venture (TV) to Australia took place from 9-17 November 2018 with six Wisconsin firms participating. The programme commenced with a welcome dinner on Sunday night and was followed by a group briefing on Monday morning held in partnership with the US Commercial service. Each of the companies also had 1-1 briefings with their Foley project manager.
The primary objective of the 2018 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 were held at the local companies offices so significant logistics were involved for the individual US company programs.
In summary, our office scheduled 42 individual meetings across the TV during the week.
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 WEDC Trade Mission was completed in November 2019 and 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 (from 2018) 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.
