Working locally on your behalf to open new markets, find new partners, and grow your international business

Business Development

Opening up new markets and securing new international partners are key drivers for business growth - but they are always significant undertakings that bring with them an element of risk. Our clients engage us to mitigate that risk through our experience, local knowledge, and network of contacts.
Developing some early customer traction or strategic relationships within new international markets enables our clients to better qualify the opportunities, understand likely challenges, and prioritise their resources accordingly. Our role is to open these doors, initiate meetings, and collate market feedback.
Our first engagement with a new client might be a “market scoping” project - usually built around the client’s own target list of potential customer or partners in the relevant country. We agree clear deliverables in terms of contacts to be made and meetings to be set up, and work closely with the client throughout the project to ensure that these are met.
Over the last year, we have undertaken market-scoping projects in China around video-compression technology and display interconnection, in Japan around magnetic sensors and automotive component assemblies, in Taiwan around microLED display technology, and in the USA around RF heating and medical robotics.
A typical project would be completed over a three month period.

Sales & Account Management

Establishing a foreign subsidiary, investing in premises, and then recruiting local staff of the right calibre is a daunting and risky undertaking, and requires significant upfront investment.
We provide our clients with a much easier route into new international markets through which they can win initial customers while gaining vital market knowledge and experience - in return for a simple monthly retainer.
We provide our clients with a local business address, expert advice, and experienced Sales representation under their own company branding. In addition to visiting customers and closing deals, we can ensure the most effective use of your international business trips, attend trade shows on your behalf, and make relevant business introductions from within our wide network of contacts. In return we charge a simple monthly retainer.
Over the last couple of years, with Covid impacting international travel, our expert and experienced local “feet on the ground” in key international markets has proved invaluable to many clients.
Although some clients have been working with us over several years, we do not tie our clients into long term commitments - and we view ourselves as a springboard to them ultimately investing in their own local team and office.
We cannot effectively represent a client if we do not properly understand their business and industry. Our own backgrounds and connections lie largely within the mobile phone, display, consumer electronics, IT and semiconductor industries - and particularly around specialist materials, sensors, electronics, actuators, and component assemblies.
A typical client has an innovative technology or product that they are seeking to sell into the major manufacturers and brands within these sectors.
Our current clients include a materials company targeting the display industry, an actuator company licensing its technology into mobile phones, a sensor company targeting the automotive sector, a specialist consultancy targeting security and robotics applications, and a printed electronics manufacturer targeting the notebook and television markets.

Licensing & strategic investment

We have specific and extensive experience of licensing intellectual property to major corporations and leading manufacturers in Japan, China, South Korea and the USA.
We advise clients on suitable licensing terms, including sometimes problematic issues such as realistic warranties and indemnities. We can also negotiate on their behalf to agree Heads of Terms or final Agreements.
We then work with clients to manage their Licensee relationships effectively, thereby securing their royalty streams.
Given the nature of our clients’ business, incoming strategic investment will sometimes form part of a wider commercial agreement or technology license - particularly when dealing with major corporations in China.
We have specific experience of managing such complicated negotiations, and in some cases have actively solicited such investment on behalf of clients.

Manufacturing & Supply Chain Management

To effectively identify, connect with, and qualify new manufacturing partners or sub-contractors requires local knowledge - as well as a strong understanding of manufacturing processes.
Our team in South Korea can work on a project basis to draw up a shortlist of potential manufacturing partners for our clients, advise on final selection, and undertake due diligence with regards to capability and quality. They have extensive manufacturing experience, working with global IT companies, and relationships with many smaller or medium sized manufacturers in South Korea who do not have international offices of their own.
Due to its highly skilled workforce, world-class infrastructure, and advanced R&D, South Korea is a very attractive destination for high end manufacturers of industrial products, medical equipment, and similar items. Typically, a client might be looking to outsource manufacturing from their own facility to Asia as their business scales.
We are experienced in such manufacturing transfer, and able to support our clients from sourcing through prototyping to full production.
Our clients tend not to have a local office through which they can manage their supplier relationships on a daily basis - and we undertake this on their behalf.
With Covid likely to impact international travel for the foreseeable future, we are able to act as our clients’ eyes and ears on the ground - visiting manufacturing facilities, picking up issues as the arise, and proactively managing these important relationships.