Vice-chair of the Derby and Derbyshire Rail Forum, Michelle Craven, speaks to RTM about driving new business for UK rail industry suppliers at Railtex and abroad.
Stand C111 I
t is an exciting time for the Derby and Derbyshire Rail Forum. Not only is the
forum exhibiting at Railtex for the fi rst time, but it has now formed a partnership with UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) to develop overseas opportunities for member companies.
Speaking to Rail Technology Magazine, vice-chair Michelle Craven explained the importance of assisting the forum’s smaller fi rms to access trading opportunities both at home and abroad. In terms of Railtex this means a collective stand that might otherwise have been too expensive for smaller members, she said, but at which they can now exhibit their own catalogues or make use of the meeting space the DDRF has on its stand.
The idea is already proving popular with members; some have booked slots for the meeting space whilst others have asked to help on the stand itself, keen to emphasise their membership of the forum, which will be handing out a directory of members during the event.
But it is the partnership with UKTI which is really turning heads in the rail industry.
Craven explains: “We realised and acknowledged that we need to be working very closely with UKTI. As an industry, we are driven by Government purse-strings and, at the moment, particularly with regard to train building, it has been some time since there has been a major order, even though there are signifi cant orders in the pipeline with projects such as Crossrail and Thameslink.”
The DDRF already works with UKTI in their regional rail forum, which means the forum gets information on major overseas projects, for example the high speed project in California, or the work that is going on in UAE and Dubai.
“The companies,” Craven advises, “bidding for that work will already have their own agents, they will already be close to the local governments in the territories where the work is going to be carried out.
“So to help our members, the majority of 92 | rail technology magazine Apr/May 11
are going to make a bid abroad and jump into the unknown.’”
The diffi culty, and this is where UKTI and DDRF can help, will be issues such as local regulations and the protection of intellectual property rights in the countries into which forum members are looking to venture.
“It is all about how risk averse you are going to be,” she states. “But with UKTI and the Chamber of Commerce, there are so many organisations who are there to help and in some cases to provide funding to those looking at exporting to give them the confi dence to look abroad.
whom are small and medium enterprises, we need to work with UKTI to understand what our membership can offer, what kind of work they would be able to tender for and start to have a look to see if there are any collaboration or consortium opportunities. We identifi ed a need there for UKTI to help the smaller members rather than simply providing the advice to the larger companies.”
For a rail forum such as the DDRF, with almost 100 members, there are clear groups into which trading practices fall: there are major multi-national organisations such as Bombardier who already have a presence elsewhere; there are those who are smaller, but have worked with government agencies such as UKTI and the regional development agency emda to establish overseas trade links; and then there are companies that have previously relied on subcontracting in the UK but now need to widen their horizons.
As Craven states: “This is why we want to work with UKTI, so that we can start helping those members who have perhaps not looked outside the UK before, to help them take that step.
“We have got world-class engineering here, especially in the East Midlands, so we know that we have got members and companies based in our region, and in the UK, who have got products that are exportable.
“A lot of the time it is down to people knowing that the tenders are live and actually having the guts to say, ‘right, we
“We are doing this for the membership. We identifi ed the need for DDRF and UKTI to work closer. We have identifi ed a gap in the services and in the way we can help our membership, especially as there is a lull in major orders, so it’s a case of fi nding ways of keeping our members working while we are in this impasse.”
Next on the agenda is a joint UKTI / DDRF export event planned for October. In the run-up, UKTI are going to be producing a rail-focused newsletter, which will give information on a broad range of subjects for rail companies so that they can see what opportunities there are abroad.
But it is not one-way traffi c; the DDRF will be using its wisdom to help UKTI improve on the services it provides British businesses.
Craven explained: “We are also looking to set up a steering committee where we will encourage companies from the DDRF membership to sit down with UKTI and suggest how UKTI can learn better from us as an industry and what it is we are looking for.
“We would like to be involved in the process that creates the remit. We want to be an industry body that says ‘this is what you are offering at the moment, this is the help we need, but actually we would prefer it this way, which would really help our members.’”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Visit
www.derbyrailforum.org.uk and
www.ukti.gov.uk
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