Travellers' Tales (1)

This is the first of two pages of Travellers' Tales

Shoe shop Sonia puts her best foot forward in Bulgaria

A TRIP abroad is the ideal way to start a business, says Sonia Poleon.

Sonia, who owns Sole Lounge, a shoe shop in Purley, went on a trade development visit to Bulgaria. And she is full of praise for the help she received during the three-day trip.

She said: “My idea is to sell good quality shoes at highly competitive prices by cutting out the middle man – the distributor – and going directly to the maker. Originally I intended to buy from the Chinese and I have been to a trade fair in Hong Kong, but I didn’t like the quality of what I saw. I was also concerned that the traders said ‘yes’ to everything, but I wasn’t sure they could deliver on their promises.”

Sonia signed up for the trade visit to Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, in the hope that one of the newest members of the European Union might be able to solve her problem –and she was not disappointed. She said: “I was delighted with the amount of work the commercial staff at the British Embassy in Sofia had done for me. When we arrived I gave them a list of shoe makers I wanted to invite to the official reception – in many cases they had already done so.

“The makers turned up with examples of their work – good quality leather and stylish designs – one even brought a lawyer, in case we wanted to do a deal there and then. “I was initially worried about the language barrier, but most of the shoe makers I met speak good English and those who don’t have interpreters available.”

Prices are higher than they would be in China, but Sonia thinks the Bulgarians are still very competitive and if she needs to sort anything out face-to-face Sofia is just a few hours away, whereas the flight time to Beijing is 12 hours.

Bryan Treherne, a seasoned overseas trader and chairman of South London Export Club, and an adviser for UK Trade and Investment, travelled with the party. He said: “These short visits are a real eye-opener for many of the businesses who take part in them – as this one was for me.

“I expected to find hard-working people, but I thought they might still be struggling to bridge the gap between their socialist past and the commercial realities of the EU. “What I found in Sofia was a fast-expanding economy with a modern public transport system – the subway is superb – and a can-do attitude that will stand them in good stead for the future."

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: A business briefing in progress at the British Embassy in Sofia (top). A commercial drop-in session in the trade visit hotel attracted more than 60 guests.

Journalist, David Callam, travelled with a British government sponsored trade development visit to Budapest timed to coincide with the city's annual food industry exhibition.
The four-day visit was organised by GLE oneLondon to introduce the capital's niche food manufacturers and distributors to this emerging central European market.
This is David’s Hungarian Diary, written exclusively for SLEC.

Food traders acquire a taste for central Europe

Before we ever set foot on an aircraft we were treated to two days of preparation in the organiser’s London offices. My only regret is that some missioners felt unable to join us, which detracted from their understanding of the market and the effectiveness of the visit.

Pre-visit Day One: a morning interactive session with Buying Vision was superb and helped us all to focus on precisely what we were offering the Hungarians. Like a speed networking session it forced you to be succinct - I particularly liked the exercise in which we were asked to present our neighbour’s business in two minutes.

The two sessions in the afternoon could possibly have been condensed into one and an Intellectual Property session following straight on made it a very passive half-day.
Ideally sessions should be alternated between interactive – which might include a discussion - and passive, though that may be easier said than done.

Pre-visit Day Two: Peter Horvath from the Hungarian Trade Commission was a useful contributor – exactly the right person to tell missioners about the likes and dislikes of their ultimate customer, the man (or woman) on the Budapest omnibus.

Bryan Treherne is always good value in any exporting situation because he knows so much about overseas trade - this session turned into a wide-ranging discussion about international business, which was very helpful.

Christopher Newton, one of the organisers of Foodapest, made a valuable contribution, offering an insider’s view of the exhibition.

The Visit

Day One
Heathrow is not a good place to start or finish a journey – it resembles a building site rather than an airport and is likely so to do for years to come, according to the BAA website.

Gatwick would be a much better choice. Yes, I know I have a vested interest in saying so, as it’s much more convenient for me, but it is well connected to other parts of Greater London too.

And from an organiser’s point of view, it is much less likely to lose members of the party at Gatwick because the airport is smaller and more passenger friendly.

Meanwhile back at the visit, a light drizzle was all it took to cause disruption to our flight, which arrived about half-an-hour late in Budapest.

Novotel Centrum is an excellent business hotel; well-appointed, comfortable and close enough to the city centre to be convenient.

As far as I know, nobody used it as a base to meet potential customers, but it is eminently suitable for that purpose with a restaurant and gallery area that is ideal for discussions over a meal or coffee.

Day Two
Barbara Eotvos from the British Embassy was our main contact and a very helpful one – I found her particularly so. I asked a number of questions on a wide range of topics and she was well informed and forthcoming.

Travelling from the hotel to the British Embassy by subway, which some of us did on a number of occasions, proved a worthwhile experience.

On these kind of visits it is easy to become cocooned in mini-buses and taxis and never have contact with the people to whom you are hoping to sell.

The briefing at the British Embassy was like the curate’s egg – good in parts. Presentations by John Nichols, the Ambassador, and Deirdre Brown, head of UKTI in Budapest, were very helpful, but the three that followed might have better been committed to paper, allowing us to start our retail visits earlier.

The four shops were carefully chosen to give us a snapshot of the retail food market in Hungary.
Rothschild’s: An interesting variety of lines that the proprietor likened to Waitrose. I didn’t think it was as consistently up market as the John Lewis operation. The visit proved fruitful for at least one of our number.
Tesco: A vast retail warehouse with all the warmth and charm of a Victorian cotton mill – but a highly efficient operation and popular with Hungarians who have an eye for a bargain.
Interspar: A Hungarian version of Sainsbury’s and a pleasant surprise to me – until now I though Spar outlets were corner shops of the kind where it would be unwise to buy anything that wasn’t factory sealed.
Culinaris: Foodie heaven, where Lindt is the ‘down-market’ chocolate – an ideal choice for our missioners since this business champions specialist lines from small suppliers and promotes the most popular into the Hungarian mainstream.

The evening reception at the British Embassy was not as busy as we might have hoped, but I have been to more sparsely attended official events. Certainly someone gave serious consideration to the reception catering, with a selection of novel and tasty nibbles on offer.

Day Three
My individual meetings took me by taxi to the city centre offices of the British Hungarian Chamber of Commerce at the height of the morning rush-hour.

I was impressed at the ease with which my cabbie used a combination of bus lanes and side streets to negotiate his way around lines of standing traffic in congested Budapest. As a result he delivered me to my meeting with time to spare.

Then it was on to a speciality retailer of all things Scottish - including a mouth-watering range of whiskies - run by a German and his Hungarian wife, both of whom speak impeccable English. They use part of the premises as a private club where connoisseurs keep and consume their favourite drams.

That left me just enough time for a quick tour of St Stephen's Basilica (pictured), the city's largest religious building, before I joined the rest of the group for the short drive to Budapest’s exhibition centre.

At the moment it is adding a wing or two, but even in its present scaffold-encrusted state the main pavilion is more inviting than the Grand Hall at Olympia.

I liked the barcode system used for visitors to Foodapest. As a business journalist I have listened for years to tall tales from exhibition organisers about the quality and quantity of those attending their events.

Now we have a system that records precisely who came, when they came, which stands they visited, in what order and exactly how long they stayed – so exhibitors can draw their own conclusions about the effectiveness of the event marketing and whether their so-called prime stand was worth the premium.

I found a pre-arranged exhibition tour unhelpful – the floor plan showed the various sections very clearly and I was easily able to work out the areas on which I wanted to concentrate.

No doubt a Euromonitor presentation was useful to those in the food industry - since I’m not it wasn’t for me - but I did admire the chutzpah of the Polish lady who presented it in excellent English.

I was fascinated by a round table discussion with Attila Borodi of Hungary’s National Association of Food Industries.

This man is not a fan of Tesco and makes many of the same complaints that smaller producers do in Britain. But he grudgingly accepts that Hungarian consumers see things differently, as demonstrated by their readiness to shop in the company’s expanding chain of hypermarkets, but he is much more comfortable with Interspar.  

Day Four
Some of our group had additional meetings during the morning, but for me it was a chance to go for a walk and absorb the atmosphere of everyday life in the city.

Time to ‘stand and stare’ is an important aspect of a development visit and should never be underestimated – a combination of people-watching and general observation is an integral part of deciding whether this is a market in which you can do business.

I have returned from Budapest with the same high regard for the Hungarians that I already have for the Poles – in a few years I believe both countries will become driving commercial forces within the European Union.

They will force the western European states, ourselves included, to look to our laurels rather than sitting on them.

It would be impossible to over praise the organisation of this visit – quite simply, it was the most professionally prepared of the six I have accompanied to date.

Malachi finds a kinder way to water the world's plants

AN INABILITY to water his wife’s plants to her satisfaction has proved to be the spark of inspiration for a south London man.

And the work of Malachi McKenna from Norbury is set to benefit rich and poor people, here and overseas, in equal measure.

Malachi, a former builder, has developed a self-watering device for plants, which has undergone pre-production trials at Plumpton College, near Lewes in Sussex.

He is pictured (right) explaining the device at last year's Inventors Exhibition in Croydon

He said: “Some years ago I had a serious accident. I fell off a scaffolding and shattered my hip. I spent a long time at home, unable to do very much and creating a lot of extra work for my wife, Nancy.

“She asked me to water her collection of plants - a simple enough job you might think, but I could never get it right. I either forgot altogether, or I gave them too much water, which is probably worse. And that set me thinking about inventing a device to do the watering for me, which is what I did.”

Malachi says his patented contraption allows the plant to take precisely as much water as it needs, thereby ensuring it grows vigorously without the danger of becoming waterlogged.

Having established his invention to the satisfaction of the Patent Office, Malachi  submitted it to the college, which specialises in all aspects of land studies and which is using its experience to help him fine-tune it.

He said: “There are two principal markets for my self-waterer; the first is those who are wealthy enough to be able to afford an apartment in one of the many high-rise blocks in London or other cities around the world.

“They need a foolproof way to water the plants on their balconies when they‘re away on business or at the week-ends; particularly their fresh herbs, which are notoriously intolerant of over-watering.

“The second is the aid agencies helping poor people in the developing world, where money and water are both in short supply and my invention will help to conserve both.

“I really like the idea that conspicuously rich people in the developed world will be subsidising some practical help for those less fortunate than themselves.”

Malachi is a member of South London Export Club and, in due course, he will benefit from its expertise in marketing his invention overseas.

Meanwhile, the prototype sits in one corner of a giant glass house in the grounds of the college, under the watchful eye of Eric Freestone (pictured right), a technician who has been experimenting with assorted mixtures of compost.

Eric is pleased with progress. He said: “The simplicity of the design will make it appealing to the developing world. There are no complicated electronics to break down; the whole thing is mechanical and therefore reasonably robust.

“But if it should get damaged, it is quick, easy and cheap to repair using basic tools that are readily to hand. Malachi and I believe that a few of these devices, covering an area no larger than 12ft by 5ft and using a series of crop rotations, could feed a family of four, using a minimal amount of water.”

SLE looks east for another bumper order

A GOOD distributor and a taste for vodka are essential if you want to do business in Russia.

So says Bernard Nelligan, managing director of SLE in South Croydon, and he should know.

This manufacturer of medical ventilators for new-born babies, received its largest ever order from there in 2007 - worth more than half-a-million pounds.

Founded in Thornton Heath in 1956, SLE has since moved to Twin Bridges Business Park in Selsdon Road, where it occupies premises built to its own specifications.

It employs 70 staff who design, manufacture, sell and service a range of ventilators for premature and unwell babies - the business generates an annual turnover of £9m.

The company supplies more than 50 per cent of the United Kingdom market and works closely with senior medical specialists to research and develop ever more sophisticated equipment.

Its latest model is based on a computerised system with touch screen control, but a previous model, first marketed in 1990, with conventional valves and pressure gauges, continues to sell well in developing countries, including Russia.

The company has been doing business with its present distributor since 2001 - YOM3 is based in Ekatarinburg in the Ural mountains at the heart of the country.

A defence contractor, the state-owned business was forced to diversify after the demise of the Soviet Union and moved into medical equipment, where it could make best use of its precision engineering skills.

Bernard said: “We first met YOM3 at an international medical exhibition in Dusseldorf and later went to see them in Moscow.

“Negotiations are always quite formal - they like everything written down in detail in the form of protocols.

“But once the deal is done, they are friendly and sociable people, who like nothing better than to entertain their guests - and that includes lots of vodka.”

YOM3 has over 20 offices across Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, through which it markets the SLE ventilators that it builds under license from kits supplied by the factory in South Croydon.

Bernard added: “Healthcare is enjoying an increased status in Russia, with more money being spent on it.

“Having a good distributor means we are kept aware of relevant government tenders and that we have someone to lead the negotiations who is intimately aware of all the likely twists and turns.”

The Russians have been to South Croydon on a number of occasions, being entertained by the Mayor during one visit.

They were trained to assemble the kits on site at SLE, but now have enough experienced staff to carry out future training in Russia.

Bernard is a regular visitor to the annual Dusseldorf medical fair and he hopes that contacts made there will produce an equally fruitful partnership elsewhere in eastern Europe.

He said: “We enjoy exporting - it’s more interesting than just serving the home market and it reduces the risk of over-reliance on the British economy.

“The United Kingdom accounts for less than five per cent of the world market for ventilators so developing export markets is the key to growing the company."

ENTERPRISING SPIRIT: Bernard Nelligan (right) and fellow SLE director Mike Donovan enjoying some Russian hospitality.

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