The Trade Bridge Blog

Wiki + Wiki = 2Wiki

The Web 2.0 revolution is gaining momentum amongst international trade media mavens. Note Laurel Delaney's new GlobeTrade wiki which was announced to her e-mail subscribers this week and the pending launch of FITA's International Trade wiki (the site, www.globaltrade.net, isn't available yet). These two new tools appear to more complimentary than competitive with Laurel's wiki focusing on professional networking and the FITA wiki focusing on industry-created trade information. And by the way, if you want to be counted among the border busters committed to global trade I recommend subscribing to Laurel's free newsletter, Borderbuster, and FITA's Really Useful Sites for Trade Professionals Newsletter. Borderbusters does a great job of promoting the business of exporting to small and medium companies and Really Useful Sites, edited by John McDonnell, is a must-have for wired trade professionals. Enjoy!

Note: Web 2.0 image above is from Andy Budd's web site.

Top IT Pain Points for Global SMEs

I stumbled on a blog called "The Entreprenuerial Mind" by Jeff Cornwall who is the Director of the Belmont University Center for Entrepreneurship in Nashville. He cites a new study from the International Office of the International Council for Small Business (ICSB):  Global Technology Study conducted in collaboration with DELL Inc. I resonated with the Top IT Pain points not only because I think they apply to all SMEs but also because these are the very issues that TBI sponsors wrestled with when developing the TRG Direct product for US importers: managing costs of technology, product complexity making them too dependent on an outside company for support, and issues with trial-ware installed on new computers.

Fortunately, TRG Direct addresses these IT Pain Points very well.

The cost of accessing the technology is a small, one-time, upfront fee ($1000) and a per entry fee ($20-$30/entry) with no long term commitments or volume contracts to agree to. All the cost of upgrades are borne by the provider, TRG Direct. The issue of support is non-existent because the product is web-based and therefore there is no need for supporting software that is housed on the customer's server. Finally, as the product is web-based, there is no trial-ware to have issues (no need for new computers either).

As we say in my house, "No pain, no pain."