Hampshire-based firm Rapid Positioning Clips has broken into the US market and secured business worth £21,000 after several years of hard work and research.
The breakthrough came with the help of Trade Partners UK - the government organisation that provides support
services for UK companies trading overseas.
Eric Osborne, sales and marketing director of RPC, was aware that the US market for the company's product is more than 30 times larger than its European counterpart and therefore believed that America was a clear target market.
No stranger to the US after working for a major international bank in New York, Mr Osborne felt he knew the market well enough to go it alone.
The company quickly acknowledged the need for expert advice and turned to its regional Trade Partners UK international trade advisor for help. RPC commissioned a tailored report from the trade team at the British Consulate General in New York and Chicago and later participated in two Trade Partners UK-funded trade missions with the Federation of Environmental Trade Association's (Feta) sponsorship.
At the first event in Nuremberg, Germany, Mr Osborne met with a manufacturers' agent from the US who wanted to represent RPC in America. Mr Osborne commented: "The importance of the Trade Partners UK in-depth report then became clear. We knew the names, the players and the structure of the market. We were really able to demonstrate to the agent that we had done our research."
Through Feta, the company has also recently exhibited at the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Show in Chicago, the world's biggest event of its kind.
Trade Partners UK has helped to give RPC the chance to expand into a potentially very lucrative market. "We have received £21,000-worth of business after returning from the show in Chicago just a few weeks ago and our agent has a target of $3m in his first full year of activity (2004)," said Mr Osborne.
RPC's unique black plastic clips are used to secure pipework, cabling and optic fibres in the plumbing, air conditioning and refrigeration industries.
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