UPDATE

We have initiated MBITA ‘eConsulting’ service where a client can be anywhere in the world and be able to chat and talk (VOIP) with a MBITA consultant while sharing desktops.  MBITA believes these kinds of collaborative online tools will be as common as picking up a telephone in a few years.  Think about it….negotiating a proforma invoice or finalizing a contract with changes and amendments in ‘real-time’ while expediting and consummating the transaction in a cost-effective and efficient manner.  Please read about in this issue our new Corporate sponsor, NTR, and their Inquiero service which allows you to do all the above and much more….these are very exciting times in trade promotion.

This is the third edition of MBITA's World Tradewinds eZine that allows you to interact with your comments, articles or suggestions. Please visit the MBITA eZine blog to make your comments.


Thanks to Sean Gilligan of vBlog Central for help setting up the blog.

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President
Tony Livoti
MBITA

Vice President
Shay Adams
AIM Medical Sales

Members

Dr. Edward Valeau
Hartnell College
Salinas

Marcelo Siero
IdeasSiero

Jim Faith
TradePort.org

Staff

Cristina Polesel
General Manager

Emi Hirano
Marketing Assistant

Akiko Tsukahara
Marketing Analyst


This newsletter has been created by MBITA's editor
Cristina Polesel
cristina@mbita.org


MBITA New Corporate Sponsor

Deliver Cost-Effective, On-Demand Remote Support to Your Customers or Employees Anywhere in the World

MBITA welcomes its newest corporate sponsor: NTR North America.

Dallas-based NTR North America develops and provides secure, yet affordable Web-based remote support solutions to help businesses of all sizes better communicate and collaborate in spite of distances and geographic boundaries.


NTR customers include more than 4,300 companies globally in industries as diverse as automotive, healthcare, consumer electronics, manufacturing, financial services, retail, and technology.

NTR (Net Transmit & Receive) was founded in 2000 in Barcelona, Spain and has offices worldwide, including its North American headquarters in Dallas, Texas. InQuiero, NTR’s on-demand remote support service, is the most secure, affordable and easy-to-use remote support solution in the market today. 

With InQuiero you can provide on-demand remote technical assistance, remote trainings and remote sales presentations no matter where your customers may be.


With InQuiero, your support representative will be able to see what your customers see, and vice versa. InQuiero takes the guesswork out of technical support and provides faster diagnosis, more accurate troubleshooting and increases first time support incident resolution rates. InQuiero is also highly secure, with 256bit AES end-to-end encryption.

With InQuiero you can:

  • Instantly view your customer’s desktop
  • Solve problems via remote screen sharing
  • Access and support unattended PC’s and MACs
  • Take remote control of your customers’ PC or MAC in seconds

Instant Global Support


Are you currently doing business in more than one language? If not, would you like to begin branching out into more countries? With InQuiero’s international language capabilities, there's no need to limit your business to English-speaking clients and countries. NTR offers truly cutting-edge communication technology and facilitates online interactions for support, training and sales in 14 different languages.

InQuiero Benefits

  • Increased sales
  • Decreased support costs
  • Shorten call times and reduce repeat calls for the same issue
  • Decrease the need for on-site visits
  • Increased first time call resolution
  • Upload customer files for quick analysis or download patches and updates
  • Diagnose and resolve problems faster via remote screen sharing
  • Improve customer satisfaction by resolving issues on the first attempt
  • Provide off-site technical support without ever leaving your office

Customer Quotes


"NTR’s InQuiero is an excellent remote support solution with vast possibilities. The gap between our support technicians and our clients now has been bridged thanks to the easy-to-use interface of InQuiero. Remote support is instantaneous. No firewalls to tunnel through and support issues are resolved in half the time. And one of the main advantages, NTR Support is very affordable and much more reasonable than the competition."

Enrique Dentone

Senior Network Consultant & Operations Manager, VATG

“NTR’s InQuiero has had more positive impact on our ability to provide excellent support service than any other remote support tool we have implemented. The setup was very easy, and we were up and running within a day.”


Ofer Nimtsovich
CIO, Retalix

“InQuiero’s remote control access web based services are now affordable for small to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs). MBITA has employed InQuiero for its new ‘MBITA eConsulting’ service. As John Freidman proclaims in his bestseller, ‘The World is Flat’, MBITA can now provide trade promotion services to clients anywhere in the world with these kinds of cost-effective methods”, states Tony Livoti of MBITA.


MBITA welcomes NTR to our corporate sponsor family and we look forward to some exciting new tools for online Global Trade.


If you're ready to take your business to a global level, choose NTR’s InQuiero and don’t forget to mention you heard about it through MBITA.

15-day Free Trial Available


Contact:

Xavier Alegria
214.615.7545
Web: http://na.inquiero.com
email na@ntrglobal.com

MBITA New Member

MBITA welcomes its new member Globalized Exports. Globalized Exports is a new company established in March 2005.



The company's focus is to offer an export/import arm to the global marketplace. They currently specialize in medical disposables, supply, and equipment and market these in the U.S.A. and overseas. To capitalize on growing trends internationally they also represent other products as well, such as scooters, dirt bikes, motorcycles, go-karts, atv’s, pocket bikes and other items.

It is the company's intention to foster and develop long-term business relationships. Globalized Exports can do this by offering their quality and professional services with the ability to stay the course.


The company's mission is to create successful international partnerships that generate ongoing sales.


The company is looking into markets in Italy, Mexico, South America, and in the USA. Brian Owen, running the company, has twenty years' experience in the medical field, which has given him a well rounded knowledge base for the medical products they sell.

Globalized Exports would like to extend an invitation to small and medium sized companies needing export/import representation. The company is interested in introducing products abroad, especially if the products are new or have new technology.



Globalized Exports is based in Santa Cruz, California and find themselves lucky to be in close proximity to the Bay Area for emerging technologies. 'It is fortunate to be in the Monterey Bay area as well which has the language institute. With these resources and others, we can have the edge for sales results" Brian Owen says.


"Thanks for allowing us to introduce our company to you and we look forward to a healthy and prosperous 2006" Brian Owen concludes.

Contact:

Brian Owen
Globalized Exports
P.O. Box 1951
Capitola, Ca 95010
Tel.: 1-831-462-8220
Fax: 1-831-462-8276
Email: globalizedexports@baymoon.com

3rd Annual
California's Premier International Trade Conference!

Every year, thousands of small and medium-sized companies pump the life’s blood of international business into the heart of the California economy, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and creating thousands of jobs.



In fact, according to Inc. Magazine’s most recent “Inc. 500” list, the state – long regarded as an incubator of entrepreneurism and innovation – serves as home to 77 of the nation’s fastest growing privately-owned companies – more than half of which have partners overseas.


On February 16, 2006 at the California Chamber of Commerce headquarters in Sacramento, 'Global California – Doorstep to the World' will offer companies of all sizes a forum to access timely information and expertise on the major issues challenging California’s international trade community. In addition, acknowledged trade experts will present visionary business executives considering taking their companies global with the valuable, practical benefit of their own international experiences.


Expert panelists at the day-long conference – organized by TradePort, the Monterey Bay International Trade Association, and the CalTrade Report – will cover such topics as:

  • The State of 'Global California'
  • The California-China Connection
  • Taking Your Company Global – The Basics
  • Branding Your Product Overseas and Global Web Marketing
  • California Public Sector Trade Initiatives
  • Secure Trade: The Challenges and Options
  • Trade Finance Options
  • California ’s Transportation Infrastructure


“Global California – Doorstep to the World” will also provide an unprecedented opportunity to meet and network with some of the most experienced international business people in the state.


Join us on February 16, 2006 in Sacramento and draw on California's vast reservoir of business acumen, energy, and entrepreneurial spirit to grow your company by exploring untold, opportunities in the global marketplace.


It’s a big world of opportunity out there and this is the trade conference you can't afford to miss.


Unlock your company’s global potential and invest in California's international future. Mark your calendar for

'Global California – Doorstep to the World.'

For registration and information, visit http://tradeport.org

MBITA Forms Strategic Partnership with a Silicon Valley Offshore IT Solution Provider


“With domestic economic development as part of its mission, MBITA has formed a strategic partnership with Colbell International headquartered in Silicon Valley to reach out to California companies in need of strategic offshore IT solutions, especially the small to mid-sized ones”, states Tony Livoti, President of MBITA.

Global outsourcing of U.S software and IT services has benefited the domestic economy by improving wages, encouraging investment and spending, and ultimately by increasing the number of jobs, according to a study by the Information Technology Association of America. The study concluded that global outsourcing generated a net increase of U.S. jobs in 2005 of 257,042, and is expected to create a net number of 337,625 new jobs by 2010.



The philosophy behind these statements are based on the theory that outsourcing IT helps U.S. companies lower costs and improve profits, which in turn are reinvested into new products and services. U.S. companies can then focus more attention on their core areas of business while developing new business opportunities. Consumers benefit because outsourcing helps lower software and service costs, encouraging them to spend more.

Colbell International was formed by a group of U.S. professionals with international origin, allowing for easy bilateral communication for things like strategic offshore outsourcing planning, project management, project execution, quality control, etc.

As a U.S. based company with strong local presence, it’s convenient for Colbell to conduct meetings with the senior executive and business teams to review progress and plans, and immediately and accurately address goals, expectations, concerns, issues, and risks.


Furthermore, by leveraging the effective communications, the customers have complete visibility and control of what is being built.


Colbell’s strategy is to inexpensively integrate and manage a company’s current applications while developing new custom applications. “By leveraging the best-of-breed industry practices and project management processes, coupled with our highly experienced elite of IT professionals in both the U.S. and offshore development centers, we are well positioned to deliver high quality projects to our customers”, states Frank Zeng, lead principal in Colbell.

What Can Be Offshore Outsourced Through Colbell?


Colbell offers a variety of application integration solutions to its clients, such as, enterprise application integration which plays a key role in many business-driven applications, e.g. business collaboration systems, real-time business intelligence systems such as business activity monitoring systems, and composite applications such as business process management systems, corporate information centers and process portals.


Additionally, Colbell is emphasizing the IT industry strategic adoption of the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) which is becoming the most common integration strategy for many customers. “SOA employs a new style of design, deployment, usage, and management of applications and is changing the business application integration landscape”, states Frank Zeng, lead principal in Colbell.


Colbell International’s project quality is guaranteed by our C-QMS (Colbell – Quality Management System) which is an integrated project process from a set of project-oriented processes to initiate projects, track progress, review project plans, and mitigate project risks. The C-QMS consists of In-house standards, document templates, tools, databases, and lifecycle modifications.


Business Process Outsourcing


The followings business sectors are generally considered good candidates to be outsourced:

  • Human resources (HR)
  • Finance
  • Accounting and Payroll
  • Purchasing
  • Customer relationship management
  • Call Center
  • IT infrastructure management
  • Business application maintenance
  • Helpdesk


MBITA looks forward to working with Colbell to identify companies that need affordable solutions for their Information Technology (IT) challenges. Please contact the MBITA office for more details and a personal introduction to Colbell.

For more information contact the MBITA office at 831-334-2218.



State Policy, California Exports and the SME: Supply chain logistics as a tool to increase global market share

By Bill Goldsborough, P.h.D
Logistics Alliance Strategies & Associates

Over the years many of California’s small and medium sized manufacturing firms have been dependent upon foreign markets to sell and source products and materials. However, the complexity of doing business internationally has prevented many of them from integrating global selling and sourcing into their everyday strategic activities.


In general involvement has been passive, with management responding to sales and sourcing opportunities rather than actively seeking them.

In the global economy of today, this approach to international markets is a formula for failure. Large companies are mastering the complexity of international trade and will continue to take market share from smaller firms that are unable to navigate their way through the maize of government regulations, carrier requirements and the service demands of their customers.

Moreover, changes in the SME’s competitive environment, e.g. transport deregulation, post 9-11 security requirements, etc. will continue to place the small firm at a competitive disadvantage.


The Office of Trade and Technology, California’s principal office for assisting SMEs in the international marketplace, was closed for budgetary reasons in 2003. Today there is talk of its reopening. If it does reopen the focus of the office should shift from one that primarily promotes trade to one that helps the SME develop a supply chain that can deal with the rigors and complexities of international trade on an ongoing basis.

The state should select SME candidates carefully before lending its financial and knowledge assistance. A sort of means test needs to be put in place that qualifies the prospective SME from the standpoint of its capabilities in the areas of process and technology


This report discusses the importance of supply chain processes and technology in global trade management and suggests what California can do to help SME’s stay competitive. 

For further information on this report please contact:



Bill Goldsborough, Ph.D
Logistics Alliance Strategies & Associates
PO Box 1050
Woodacre , CA 94973-1050
Ph: 415 488 1491
Email: wgoldsborough@comcast.net


MBITA Luncheon: Worldwide Advances in Nanotechnology

Santa Cruz , November 17, 2005

MBITA, the Osaka Prefectural Government, CA Office, the San Francisco Bay Area Nanotechnology Council and the Monterey Export Assistance Center (EAC) of the U.S. Department of Commerce (USDOC) hosted the Santa Cruz Chapter luncheon 'Worldwide Advances in Nanotechnology' on Thursday, November 17, in Santa Cruz.

The guest speakers Dhaval J. Brahmbhatt, Chairman, IEEE San Francisco Bay Area Nanotechnology Council and Charles V. Fishel, President Chief Operating Officer, Interface Sciences Corporation, addressed the global opportunities evolving in the marketplace and the implications for trade as nanotech begins to transform traditional manufacturing.

Over 30 representatives of start-ups, educational institutions and non-profits from Santa Cruz and the Bay Area attended the meeting to learn about the latest challenges in nanotechnology and where the opportunities could lead within the next 10 years in the global economy.

Read the Santa Cruz Sentinel article for a detailed report about this meeting.

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