President
Tony Livoti
MBITA
Vice President
Shay Adams
AIM Medical Sales
Members:
Dr. Edward Valeau
Hartnell College
Salinas
Victor Cordell
Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS)
Marcelo Siero
IdeasSiero
Jim Faith
TradePort.org
Staff:
Cristina Polesel
General Manager
MBITA
Emi Hirano
Marketing Assistant
MBITA
This newsletter has been created by MBITA's editor
Cristina Polesel
cristina@mbita.org
MBITA Corporate Sponsor:
First National Bank, South Valley National Bank, San Benito Bank, Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, and Pacific Capital Bank, are proud to be corporate sponsors of MBITA!
The five banks named above are associated as a Network of Community Bank’s. This association enables each Bank to maintain their separate name, identity and unique culture that define premier banking in their distinct neighborhoods. They are best known for their quality customer service with a strong community-orientation, and yet their combined strength enables them to offer a variety of international banking solutions for their commercial clients.
The following fictitious “case study” relays a common trade scenario for companies who do business internationally. The case study will demonstrate how a general description of a company’s common business practices can help the Bank match financial solutions to the Company’s international banking needs:
Sophisticated International Inc. is a manufacturer of high quality luggage, which is exported all over the world.
The leather for their suitcase line is sourced from a company in Texas and the finished product is assembled at the Sophisticated factory in Salinas, by American craftsmen. Management had made a strategic decision years ago to stay away from the direct marketing of their product.
Instead, they rely upon distributors all over the world, who purchase the merchandise and sell it in their respective markets. The average sale to each distributor translates to about $100,000 per shipment. Sophisticated is requesting a working capital line to support the company’s growing production demands. In reviewing the Sophisticated Profit & Loss statement, it appears that there is a substantial and re-occurring Accounts Payable item to one specific company in Asia named “Bukl-Rite”, indicating that they are also importing raw materials.
Sophisticated has one distributor in Western Europe that they have been doing business with for 8 years and is by far the Company’s oldest and most trusted counterpart. Last year alone, this single distributor imported $400,000 worth of Sophisticated luggage, using commercial Letters of Credit. Both parties are estimated to have paid about $10,000 in Letter of Credit-related charges last year. Both Sophisticated and the distributor would like to find less expensive and less burdensome ways in which to transact business going forward.
While Sophisticated International has only provided a short synopsis of the company’s business needs, the Bank is able to identify many financial solutions for Sophisticated’s business transactions! Of course Sophisticated knew that the Bank would be able to provide the working capital line of credit they requested, but they didn’t expect that so many of their international banking needs could be met by the Bank!
SOPHISTICATED'S NEED :
FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS AVAILABLE VIA THE NETWORK OF COMMUNITY BANKS
- Sophisticated would like to transact business in the foreign currency of the country they are shipping to. At times, they also need to be able to preserve the exchange rate from the time the order is placed to the time the product is manufactured and delivered.
- Foreign Exchange –
(Spot and forward transactions) - Sophisticated would like to expedite the receipt of payment for goods shipped.
- International Bank Wires (incoming)
- Sophisticated’s would like to have financial backing for deals with the distributors who are not well known to them.
- Export Letters of Credit
- Sophisticated would like to provide financial backing for the deals with their frequent supplier, Bukl-Rite, as well.
- Import Letter of Credit
- Because Sophisticated has a trusted relationship with their largest distributor and is confident to receive payment, they’d like to limit the bank’s responsibility to assuring that the transaction documentation is correct. Both seller and buyer would like to save money on transaction fees.
- Documentary Collections for goods purchased by their largest distributor.
This more limited service will save both parties money. - Sophisticated would like to provide financial backing for deals with their domestic suppliers, as well.
- Commercial Letters of Credit
Sophisticated will benefit from the services mentioned above as well as from the many other business services available to them through the Network of Community Banks!
- First National Bank
- South Valley National Bank
- San Benito Bank
- Santa Barbara Bank & Trust
- Pacific Capital Bank
MBITA members are welcomed to call for solutions to your international and domestic banking needs!
The International Banking Group is staffed by the following professionals:
• Becky Venard
Vice President Northern Region (831) 658-4614
email: bvenard@1stnational.com
Web: www.1stnational.com
• Shawn Walters
Vice President & Product Manager
MBITA Corporate Sponsor
Crop•Circle•Studios is celebrating its sixth year of business in Monterey, California. Creative Director and Founder Bob Homami established the full service media design firm as a “gathering field” for seasoned artisans to nurture and unleash their creativity and talent in a purposeful manner. “I’m really excited about the team that’s on board, the momentum we’ve created and the opportunities that are presenting themselves,” said Homami.
Creative
• Marketing & Advertising Strategy / Campaign
• Creative / Script Writing
• Public Relations / Communication Strategies
• Character Design & Development
• Producing / DirectingPrint
• Corporate ID Logo / Brand Design
• Advertising / Marketing Collateral Design
• Stationery Systems & Business Cards
• Trade Show Booth Design
Interactive
• CD-ROM
• DVD
• Flash
• Kiosks
• Websites
• Programming
Motion
• Broadcast Design & Animation
• Digital Effects & Animation for Film
• Educational / Industrial Videos
• Sales / Marketing Videos
• Video Production
• Editing & Compositing
“We don’t just sell our services,” said Homami, “We enter into relationships. We don’t just conceptualize ideas; we achieve a clients’ goal by realizing the vision with unparalleled execution. Boundaries exist only if we believe in them. We have recently launched our “reformation” campaign to celebrate Crop•Circle• Studios’ sixth year in business and look forward to making many more POWERFUL•IMPRESSIONS™.”
“Web site and product media design is becoming a crucial component in a company’s global marketing strategy. The capability of providing a succinct and powerful visual message about your company and its products or services tailored to the business culture of any one particular country is critical for success. We see Crops•Circle•Studios as leaders in the media design industry and MBITA looks forward to some innovative online solutions when using visual media to market products and services throughout the world”, says Tony Livoti of MBITA.
Contact:
Bob Homami
Creative Director
Crop•Circle•Studios
Ph: 831.646.1543
Fax: 831.646.1593
Web: www.cropcirclestudios.com
E-Mail: bob@cropcirclestudios.com
Start-up companies over the past few years have been faced with the dilemma of growing their companies at a time when investors have fled venture capital market. Many have had to bootstrap operations by concentrating on B2B sales in the US, a slow task fraught with risk. Most entrepreneurs pass over international and government markets, which offer higher margins and reduced volatility, because of the time and energy required to develop those markets.
C Lynch International has developed, and successfully proven, strategies to help new companies tap into these markets. C Lynch International works with clients to identify opportunities, form an appropriate strategy and find the appropriate partners to launch the effort. Chris Lynch, founder of the company, has over twenty years international experience in Europe, Latin America and Asia in advising companies on how to enter new markets. He also understands how government sales work, both in the US and internationally, based on his experience as a US Foreign Service Officer (last Consul General in Hamburg). Chris has an extensive contact network around the globe and knows how to open doors for clients.
Here are some examples of solutions to tough business problems:
- A California company needing entrée into a South American state-owned company. Created a strategy appropriate to the market and set-up meetings with senior government officials.
- Five small companies wanting to sell defense products to Latin America. Presented companies at a trade fair and followed up with innovative local production agreements.
- A software company with a public security application. Created strategy to sell to the US and local governments and found grant programs to finance R&D costs.
Chris Lynch founded C Lynch International in 2002 when he moved to the Bay Area following his career with the State Department. Since then, C Lynch International has worked with clients on projects in Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Japan, and China. An MBITA member since 2003, Chris says that MBITA "is an excellent networking forum and has some of the most interesting and dynamic programs in California."
Contact
Chris Lynch
CLynch international
Tel. 415-717-1105
email: clynch@clynchinternational.com
Poland: the Gateway to the European Union Market
A Report from International Food, Drink and Hospitality Exhibition (IFE) 2004, Warsaw
by Lidia Thompson, MBITA Eastern European Consultant
This environment was the setting of the One Global California conference held May 5, 2004 at the Millennium Biltmore in Los Angeles, California. Organized by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the CalTrade Report and TradePort, two hundred and fifty (250) conference participants attended including businesses and trade promotion groups and associations, local economic development groups, chambers of commerce, banks and Federal government trade promotion groups. The conference presented panels and presentations from the State's trade promotion service leaders discussing how California should now plan to expand globally without TTCA. With exports representing 25% of jobs in California this conference was a timely event with serious issues on how to help California's economy rebound.
An underlying theme behind this conference was that the Swarzenegger administration has given strong signals to government agencies and the private sector that it wants the State government to take more of a coordinating, public relations role to promote California products and services abroad, rather than actually implementing trade promotion services as it has in the past. This approach clearly represents Governor Swarzenegger's true conservative philosophy in leaving private business to fare on its own, without the State's direct involvement in trade promotion services.
Swarzenegger's Business, Transportation and Housing (BTH) agency, under the leadership of high-powered Secretary Sunne McPeak, gave the keynote speech for the conference stressing the effectiveness of public-private consortiums working together leveraging the resources of the State (not necessarily money) with the business expertise of the private sector for an effective strategy to promote California exports and encourage direct foreign investment. This approach was very successful in the late nineties with the unprecedented public-private sector trade promotion program called BAYTRADE.
MBITA, who manages the TradePort.org website which represents over 60,000 California small to mid-sized enterprises through its partnership in the CalTrade Coalition network agrees with Ms.McPeak. "We see TradePort as the glue to make this kind of marriage between public-private sector trade promotion organizations, when providing trade promotion services to small-to-mid sized enterprises in California, a cost-effective, efficient and doable strategy. TradePort technologies are now being reviewed by MBITA's TradePort team, especially the new web-based collaboration services which make this kind of public-private sector statewide trade promotion project much more feasible than in prior years", says Tony Livoti, President of MBITA.
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