Mentoring for SMEs

The Indonesia and South Korean Trade Missions have provided ASR with considerable insights into the opportunities and challenges of both markets. In particular it has enabled a high level of engagement by the ASR with the services industry seeking opportunities in Asia generally, and in each of those markets in particular.

The trade missions have highlighted the need for the services sector and SMEs in particular to be provided with a greater awareness of the opportunities in these markets and the benefits of the respective trade agreements.

 There are two clear learnings arising from both trade missions.

These are not specific to the markets, but reflective of the needs of services firms and SMEs in particular. These are:

  1. Trade Agreements are vital for trade in services and ASR will continue to work with Government and to support the Government’s work on trade negotiations. However, for many services firms, the conversations are not so much around the trade agreements themselves, but the broader topic of Internationalisation. This has a component of understanding the trade agreements, but goes further and requires an understanding of cultural differences and other aspects of internationalization. In part these issues also go to the ability of services firms to prepare themselves for international expansion, by establishing innovation, agility and growth strategies.
  2. ASR has also identified a need to provide further support to services SMEs. There is a gap in providing specialised assistance to SMEs in understanding trade agreements, and internationalisation generally. Growth strategies form part of this.

These key learnings from the trade missions, have resulted in the following projects:

SME MENTORING ROUNDTABLES

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INTERNATIONALISATION RESEARCH

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