• Project Leader: Fiona Whitehurst, Joanna Berry
• Staff: Jenny Hasenfuss
• Sponsors: Northern Leadership Academy

The export market is hugely important to the North East economy. It was worth £12.7bn in the year to the end of March 2011, and the North East is the fastest-growing exporting English region.

The latest figures are 29.5% higher than a year ago and compared with the national export increase of just 17.6%.

Although the NE export figures are dominated by companies like Nissan, there are ample opportunities for small businesses to supply to overseas business and sell their goods and services.

Working with octogenarian entrepreneur, Herbert Loebl, and in partnership with UKTI and RTC North, Newcastle University Business School ran a series of 4 workshops for a cohort of 9 regional SMEs in 2010/2011.

The workshops were hosted by the Business School and brought in expert speakers on 4 topics: The Basics of Exporting; Market Selection; Choosing a Distribution Strategy and Managing Export Risk. The four workshops were followed up with a “wrap up” session when we introduced a mapping tool to enable participants to develop a forward looking action plan. Mentors from other exporting businesses supported the participant companies.