Hawaii Pacific Export Council

Hawaii is in such a great place at this time with the opportunities created by world events.

Ideal climate, great broadband connectivity due to the military presence based here, our proximity to large, new, emerging markets, our population diversity, multi lingual citizens and many other reasons. We are able to work across cultures and time-zones in a seamless global network

Today, customers worldwide demand more involvement and more customization from companies they buy from, something Hawaii Businesses know something about. No single firm is big enough in scope and size to satisfy the experiences of one consumer at a time. The larger the companies the more focus is on access to resources and large markets.

To successfully compete in the 21st-century business, we must reinvent the processes and culture in order to sustain competitive, innovative solutions.
Many companies in various industries will succeed because they are able to change, or fail because they can’t keep up with changes.

There are changes in customer demands today, in the pace of business, in the use of technology, new economic powers, new affluent consumers and new consumer needs. The window of opportunity is no longer what it was and the shelf life of a success story is much shorter. These new customer demands and trends are going to be with us for a long, long time. What is your company prepared to do about it?

There are over 2 billion new consumers developing in India and China right now, staggering numbers? Can your company afford to take its time, when competitors are going after these new markets and consumers, accelerating customer engagement, product development, and cementing relationships?

There are many solutions and services Hawaii based Companies are able to offer through quality service, innovation, knowledge of hospitality, CRM and client services. This is how we built our “Tourism Niche’” with the “Aloha Spirit”.

ING Direct, a new service being located in Waikiki at the old Local Motion location, ING DIRECT will open an Internet cafe on the ground floor of the building at 1958 Kalakaua Ave., where customers will be able to purchase coffee access the Internet and learn about the online bank’s investment tools, services, and deposit and loan products. Educational investment programs to assist people in their investment needs. Maybe this will fail; maybe it will be a huge success. Credit must be given to ING for creativity, trying and innovation.

On line learning centers world wide are offering great, quality educational services and products tailored to meet the demands of students needs and desires on demand. Many of these centers are managed by world class universities, MIT, Harvard, and Stanford as well as thousands of business and language schools. Instructors in China teaching Mandarin and Chinese Cooking, instructors in India teaching media and video courses, instructors in Japan teaching Japanese, Ikebana and making sushi. Technology helps make this possible, on demand for a fee, MIT offering classes on line free of charge.

Amazon Web Services and Facebook are teaming up to help developers build instantly scalable applications for Facebook users. Build your Facebook app on AWS to ensure reliability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness as your application grows in popularity. You Tube video allows you to make audio/visual presentations from your web site on your products and services foe a minimal investment of time and money.

With 55 million active members worldwide, as of November 2007, Facebook’s social / business networking site allows you to create and share your applications with a massive and growing community of users. Amazon Web Services enables you to quickly implement your ideas for Facebook applications by providing an inexpensive, scalable computing platform. Using these infrastructure web services, your Facebook application is able to reach “web-scale” by scaling up and down seamlessly as demand dictates — with pay-as-you-go pricing and no upfront costs. This allows companies and individuals to market and promote their products and services worldwide in any language.

Many International firms do not like to hire large numbers of people and let them go after six months when the project is done. It costs them money as well as the security issues that allow their competitors to have insight into their business. Many would rather outsource to vendors, as they work for a large number of firms, these vendors can afford to focus a large number of talented people for short periods of time. These outsourcing companies can allocate staff from 10 to 300 or more from one location to another or one project to another in a week, a month for whatever period of time needed. Like “Temp Help Services” they offer varied skill levels and industry qualifications. They recruit internationally as well as from the US and fill positions worldwide where needed.

Staggering numbers, aren’t they? But the key point being this is happening in a short period of time, like now. Can your company afford to take its time, when competitors might be leveraging some of these vast sets of global resources to accelerate customer engagement, product development, and all-around decision making?

Many of these examples are outside the box and will seem strange however they are an example of opportunity. Opportunities within our ability that will allow us not to get locked into a set of processes and models that are not stimulating new business, not increasing profits create a depressing, unexciting, and uninspiring future for our Hawaii businesses.

DJ Halcro
www.hawaiipacificexportcouncil.org
www.hawaiiscore.org

A few years ago India was dealing with civil unrest and with Pakistan, a potential nuclear war threat, and its economy was seen as a also-ran in a race for growth with China. Today India finds itself in the same Western thoughts as China, both fast-growing economies, large population base and both viewed as threat and an opportunity to the rest of the world.

Asia’s emerging giants, their social and economic systems are vastly different however they have strengths that are complementary. International community leaders, business leaders and multinationals need to think more about both of these countries together rather than separate entities. There are many fronts where there is already mutual collaboration between the two; there are synergies between the two that will develop as they both move toward global importance. Relations between China and India have been improving in recent years and as they find mutual areas that facilitate each other this will continue to improve. As they both search out new markets and resources, especially in places like Africa, they will find common bonds of cooperation.

The world has seen how Japan and Korea have grown and developed over the past 20 years. In many ways there was collaboration and many mutually beneficial relationships that fostered the success for both of these countries.

China and India are two countries with many millions of Entrepreneurs so you know there will be a tremendous level of spirit and activity between the two; nothing alleviates the issue of poverty like economic success. They in many ways complement each other as China’s strength is in manufacturing, speed of decision making, the ability to plan, move and complete huge projects in a very short period of time, getting things done. China respects India’s ability to engineer, develop software, technology skills, medicine and outsourcing strengths.

Collectively they will have a huge advantage in purchasing power. The world has already seen some of this power as the demand for oil and other resources have impacted prices world wide. For many years America has had a distinct advantage in this area however this will diminish as these two powerhouses increase in global strength.

Many foreign firms view China and India’s huge and somewhat open markets as a source of customers as well as competition. There is a tremendous opportunity for International Companies and Firms to find an ever increasing number of emerging buyers for their products and services. There is a large number of Chinese and Indian Students in the US who have or are making their way back to these countries to take advantage of the growth and opportunity to do well in their careers and make their fortunes. These young people will lead the development and growth.

China and India, as they move forward to becoming the two largest economies in the world, ever, are awakening to the benefits of international education and corporate training. They have more resources for developing solutions and their growth at their disposal than any other developing country in history. Technology will allow them to access resources faster and more efficently. They understand that this creates qualified manpower that bring in professionalism, leading to higher value in terms of better efficiency and productivity. It’s a win-win situation for all as the organizations benefit due increased efficiency and the employees grow and become more well paid consumers.

There are great opportunities here for companies and business leaders who make the decision that there will be a Chinese and / or India plan in their future.

SMALL BUSINESS FAIR

“Learn the Basics of Starting or
Expanding Your Business”

Saturday, May 10, 2008
Workshops: 8:30 am – 2:00 pm
CHAMINADE UNIVERSITY
Ching Center in Eiban Hall
3140 Waialae Avenue

Here’s what we have in store to assist you:

8:30 - 9:00 Service organizations
9:00 - 10:00 Registering your company, choosing the right entity, tax
requirements
10:15 - Noon Financing, business plans, bookkeeping, marketing ideas
12:00 - 2:30 One-on-one appointments
1:00 - 2:00 Exporting Workshop

Admission is FREE! Optional Brown Bag Lunch is $5.00.

Hurry……Deadline to sign up is May 5, 2008
For registration forms, call 487-0205, 487-0202, 487-0224
or e-mail nmasuno @ fhb.com

Come and visit these exhibitors: Small Business Administration ▪ Better Business Bureau ▪ Business Action Center ▪ Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii ▪ Chaminade University ▪ DBEDT ▪ First Hawaiian Bank ▪ Hawaii Foreign Trade Zone #9 ▪ Hawaii Pacific University ▪ High Technology Development Corporation ▪ Hawaii Women’s Business Center ▪ Minority Business Enterprise Center ▪ Office of Hawaiian Affairs ▪ Small Business Development Center ▪ Small Business Law Corp ▪ SCORE ▪ US Postal Service…and more!

SPONSORED BY: First Hawaiian Bank - Chaminade University

SMALL BUSINESS FAIR

“Learn the Basics of Starting or Expanding Your Business”

Saturday, May 10, 2008
Workshops 8:30 am – 2:00 pm
Chaminade University, Ching Center in Eiban Hall
3140 Waialae Avenue

What’s in store for you:
• 8:30 - 9:00 Service organizations to help you
• 9:00 - 10:00 Registering your company, choosing the right entity, tax requirements
• 10:15 - Noon Financing, business plans, bookkeeping, marketing ideas
• 12:00 - 2:30 One-on-one appointments
• 1:00 - 2:00 Exporting workshop

Exhibitors: Small Business Administration, Better Business Bureau, Business Action Center, Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, Chaminade University, DBEDT, First Hawaiian Bank, Hawaii Foreign Trade Zone #9, Hawaii Pacific University, High Technology Development Corporation, Hawaii Women’s Business Center, Minority Business Enterprise Center, Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Small Business Development Center, Small Business Law Corp, SCORE, US Postal Service and more.

SPONSORED BY: First Hawaiian Bank - Chaminade University

For information, call Naomi at 487-0205, 487-0202, 487-0224 or e-mail nmasuno@fhb.com

———————————————————————————————————————————————-

Admission is Free! Registration deadline to reserve your space is May 5, 2008.
Brown bag lunch cost: $5 (optional). Please make check payable to First Hawaiian Bank.

Name(s):
Company:
Address:
City: Zip: Phone:
E-mail: Fax:
Total Lunches: Total Amount Enclosed: $

One-on-one 30-minute appointments: Please indicate 1st, 2nd, 3rd choices and times preferred (Noon to 2:30 pm), if interested.
[ ] Small Business Administration [ ] Financing
[ ] Marketing [ ] Business Plans
[ ] Business Counseling [ ] Importing/Exporting

Please fax this Registration Form to 487-0210 or e-mail nmasuno@fhb.com to reserve your space.
If you are ordering lunch, please send a copy of this Registration Form along with your check to
Naomi Masuno at First Hawaiian Bank, 98-1071 Moanalua Road, Aiea, HI 96701

For up to the minute assistance in exporting solutions worldwide.

E-Market Express
ENVIRONMENTAL SECTOR
INTERNATIONAL TRADE OPPORTUNITIES DELIVERED DIRECTLY TO YOU

In an effort to assist firms in the U.S. environmental industry increase their export sales, the U.S. Department of Commerce publishes the on-line “Environmental e-Market Express Bulletin.” At this site you will find market research, trade leads, and trade events for worldwide opportunities. This monthly bulletin is regularly updated with all new reports!

Please use the link below to view and select the reports of your interest.

http://www.buyusa.gov/eme/enviro.html1

AGRIBUSINESS SECTOR
The Agribusiness E-Market Express was created at the request of U.S. Agribusiness companies. Firms have asked us to notify them, at least monthly, of NEW Agribusiness market research, trade leads and events that we receive from our colleagues in the Commercial and Agricultural Service at the U.S. Embassies and Consulates overseas. U.S firms can electronically submit requests for the Agribusiness reports compiled by the team. Upon receipt of requests, the Agribusiness team sends out the research or information requested.

Please visit http://www.buyusa.gov/eme/agribusiness.html2.

www.hawaiipacificexportcouncil.org

Seeking Out a SCORE Business Mentor - SCORE Hawaii
By: D.J. Halcro

Often the smartest people are the ones who know they don’t know it all. Like it or not, a business of your own exposes you to duties, situations, problems and opportunities you may never before have faced. Is it time for you to get a mentor?

A SCORE mentor is an experienced business adviser who is willing to share information and insights on a regular basis. If you worked in a corporate environment before going out on your own, you’re probably familiar with the concept of a senior manager in the organization mentoring a younger one. Some companies have even formalized their mentoring program. In your own business, however, of necessity your mentor will come from outside.

If you are seeking a mentor, it makes sense to start by looking for experienced business professionals in the same business or industry as your own company. Ideally the one you want will already know something about your work and management style. Over your entrepreneurial career, you may even have a succession of mentors.

What does a SCORE mentor contribute to your growth as a business owner? First of all, he or she helps speed up your learning in vital areas of your business. This individual is not afraid to share personal experiences with you as well as expertise. But there are other advantages. A mentor:

helps you avoid isolation, by becoming a “trusted other” in which to confide your uncertainties as well as your breakthroughs
lends perspective, reminding you to “keep your eye on the doughnut and not the hole”
supplies the candid, honest feedback you may not be getting from your employees
provides moral support for the tough decisions you have to make in your business
Not so very far down the road, you will be ready to mentor individuals who are where you were only a year or two ago. You may be pleasantly surprised to see how this accelerates your own learning and growth as an entrepreneur. You then become a contributor to the business community in the same way your mentor was to you.

In short, mentoring is a relationship that will pay dividends for both you and the individual who mentors you. Finding the right mentor could be one of the most important ways you help your business to succeed. SCORE is a great resource for you.

To learn more about the mentoring and other training topics, contact SCORE “Counselors to America ’s Small Business.” More than 10,500 volunteer business counselors nation wide donate their time to consult with and mentor entrepreneurs. SCORE is a nonprofit association that provides free and confidential business counseling to America ’s small business owners. Call 808-547-2700 for a referral to the SCORE Hawaii Chapter or find a mentor online at www.scorehawaii.org. We are here to assist.