TPO Network Awards 2010

Best TPO from a Developing Country

Brazilian Trade & Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) 

Interview with Apex-Brasil’s Director Mauricio Borges

The Brazilian Trade & Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) promotes Brazilian exports. It recently launched the Industrial Extension for Exporting Project (PEIEX), a strategic initiative to build the export capacity of Brazilian SMEs.

PEIEX enhances competitiveness of Brazilian companies by using a broad network of consultants to help entrepreneurs identify critical challenges, and improve business processes and operations in areas such as management, marketing, human resources financing, production and international trade.

An integrated strategy

PEIEX is part of Apex-Brazil’s integrated strategy to foster internationalization of Brazilian companies. Its main objective is to increase the number of Brazilian exporting companies. Its target clientele are companies that are not yet exporting or those beginning to export.

PEIEX develops numerous initiatives in areas such as market information, export qualification and promotion, positioning and image promotion and internationalization support. All these services are interlinked in a well-designed system. This allows companies from various sectors, different sizes and levels of business development to find the appropriate Apex-Brazil services.

PEIEX is a crucial element in Apex-Brazil’s strategy. It has had a significant impact on Brazil’s companies’ competitiveness, preparing them to face the challenges of both domestic and international markets.

Continuous evaluation and monitoring of outcomes and results characterizes PEIEX’s methodology. There is already evidence of remarkable impacts on Brazilian companies using PEIEX’s services. Improvements have been seen is such areas as sales, profits, markets, infrastructure, human resources, management, production and marketing. Surveys show that 243 Brazilian companies have reported 458 improvements or positive impacts in their resources, capabilities and/or competiveness.

Click here to see the presentation on Apex-Brasil winning case.

 

Interview with Apex-Brasil’s Director Mauricio Borges

 

Meeting the challenges of domestic and international markets

“Our clients are involved and consulted constantly. We always listen to our clients’ needs so that we understand how to solve their problems. We have had a significant impact on Brazil’s companies’ competitiveness, preparing them to [meet] the challenges of domestic and international markets.” Mauricio Borges, Director, Apex-Brasil
  

What challenges did your organization face before you made the changes in processes that led to you winning the Award?

In 2007, Apex-Brasil implemented a significant restructuring process aimed at keeping up with the changes in the economic environment, including government policies aimed at opening markets and responding to Brazil’s fast growing economy and consumer market. As a result, we at Apex-Brasil broadened our areas of activity and services’ portfolio.

Brazilian companies were facing increasing competition abroad and at home. Sometimes, going global was the only option to survive. Many companies were not prepared for the new economic reality. Some of them were interested in taking part in Apex-Brasil trade promotion projects, but they were not ready to become exporters – they needed capacity building and coaching. At the same time, more mature Brazilian companies needed more sophisticated services.

These external changes and new demands led us to expand the range of services we offer. This called for a new integrated approach to our services so that a company could receive different kinds of assistance according to its level of preparedness.

How did you identify what changes you had to make?

Studies and discussions conducted by the Brazilian Government and by Apex-Brasil identified the necessary changes we needed to make. We also consulted all of our counterparts in the private sector.

One of the main changes was to implement an export capacity building programme – PEIEX – in addition to the trade promotion and internationalization initiatives already on offer. This enables a company to benefit from a whole chain of integrated services aimed at supporting exporters.

PEIX became a crucial element in our strategy. It proved to have a very significant impact on the companies’ competitiveness, preparing them to face challenges both in domestic and international markets and serving as a gateway to our other services.

What challenges did your organization face when implementing the changes?

We faced several challenges, including maintaining the integrated approach to the portfolio of Apex-Brasil services, identifying target SMEs, and coordinating with external partners – especially universities.

We also had to modify our approach towards our clientele, with services being provided directly to companies and not through the active participation of industrial and services associations. We had direct interaction with Brazilian companies, not only through PEIEX, but also through other service distribution channels, such as our regional offices, customer relationship management, and our website.

PEIEX still faces some challenges, such as making the programme available across the country while maintaining its cost efficiency. It is a challenge to maintain high quality standards across the country given the differences in economic and social development in the Brazilian states involved. We also face continuous updates on PEIEX methodology and constant training of the PEIEX team to guarantee high standards of coaching, consulting and business management.

What have the changes accomplished so far? Results?

Apex-Brasil experienced major improvements during the last three years. Statistical data comparing 2006 to 2010 shows positive results. The number of events grew from 394 in 2006 to 842 in 2009. By the end of 2010, Apex-Brasil will have organized more than 900 events.

The number of companies assisted rose from 4,699 to 12,783 and the share of assisted companies in total exports increased from 6.5% to 22.98%. The number of industrial and service sectors served grew from 52 to 80.

Besides registering quantitative results, we have a methodology of monitoring and measuring the other impacts of our activities. A sophisticated system of project management used across Apex-Brasil, as well as by all the partners involved in supported projects, enables us to identify all the outputs and results of the initiatives. This methodology will be further improved in partnership with ITC, as Apex-Brasil is ITC’s main partner in developing the Trade Support Institutions’ Operating System.

Our peers recognized Apex-Brasil’s excellence by electing us President of the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) in 2008 and re-elected in 2010, and President of the Ibero-American Network of Trade Promotion Organizations (RedIbero) in 2009.

What are the most innovative features of the changes you have implemented?

One of the most striking features is that we are consolidating a sophisticated integrated strategy to foster the internationalization of Brazilian companies. The numerous initiatives related to information, export qualification, export promotion, image promotion and internationalization support are interconnected in a well-designed system. This allows companies from various sectors and of different sizes and levels of business development to be directed to the appropriate mix of our services.

In your view, what are the major obstacles to a TPO showing value for money to its stakeholders – both clients and public authorities?

As in any other country, in Brazil there are different governmental bodies and organizations involved in trade promotion, image promotion and SMEs’ export capacity building. The main challenge of the rational use of public money for these activities is the efficient coordination among all these players to avoid replicated actions. In this sense, the development of a common strategy, as well as an efficient distribution of roles between the responsible organizations, is crucial.

For us, the most important factor that contributed to the reinforcement of the value for money principle was the change in the process of building the strategy. Since 2007, identifying priority markets and sectors, as well as the kind and format of activities, has been based on business intelligence. Each decision considers research, analysis, statistical data and market trends together with the characteristics of the potential sectors and clients involved. The decision-making is no more focused on each client’s demand, but negotiated with counterparts based on research and priorities. At the same time, the business intelligence methodology always takes into consideration the contributions of clients and their market knowledge and experience.

Is the model you used replicable by other TPOs?

There are many innovative features of our model that can be benchmarked and used by other TPOs. This is already happening. We receive numerous technical visits and we provide different services under technical cooperation agreements with partner TPOs, which are keen on learning and replicating Apex-Brasil’s best practices. Our successful experiences that can be replicated include:

• An integrated approach to the service portfolio;
• A project management and results’ monitoring system;
• A strategic decision-making process based on business intelligence;
• Client relations’ management; and,
• A strategic partnership approach.

We also consider benchmarking very important, so we constantly stimulate partner TPOs to work with us to share experiences.

How will you be using the Award to promote Apex-Brasil's image?

Apex-Brasil considers the Award to be the highest recognition in the world of foreign trade promotion. It is a quality seal granted to the agencies for their initiatives that exemplify best practices and demonstrate outstanding performance and strategies in terms of cost efficiency.

Such distinguished recognition will definitely contribute to promoting our image, particularly in institutional events and promotional activities. We will also mention this recognition in speeches and videos, on our website and in public relations’ activities.