Mass Export Center helps steer businesses through export regulations

By A.J. Bauer

GateHouse News Service

Posted May 07, 2008 @ 02:32 PM

BOSTON

Murphy, a Marshfield resident, is director of the Massachusetts Export Center, a specialized part of the state’s small business development network she helped establish in 1994.

In late April, the center was awarded the first Small Business Development Centers Service Excellence and Innovation Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration, which pays roughly 60 percent of the center’s $500,000 annual budget. The rest is provided by the state.

Massachusetts businesses exported more than $25 billion in goods in 2007, up about 5 percent from 2006. While the center’s clients accounted for a little more than $160 million of that sum, they saw their export sales increase at three times the overall state export rate.

Murphy said the recent award validates her efforts and those of her six-person staff as they work to cover rapidly growing demand for their services.

What are the biggest challenges facing small businesses attempting to export their goods?

One of the biggest challenges is, ironically, our U.S. export regulations. In the name of national security, they’ve become really quite complex and onerous, and it can be difficult for a company to navigate those regulations and make sure that their processes and procedures are compliant.

What does the Massachusetts Export Center do to help guide businesses through those regulations?

We go into the company. We will counsel them on the different areas of regulations, help them determine what jurisdiction they might be under. We might do in-house training, because what happens a lot of times is when a company is exporting, different parts of the company are involved. So you’re going to have the sales and marketing people, you’re going to have the logistical people, you’re going to have the accounts receivable people. And they’re not necessarily talking to one another, and in order for a company to be compliant and make sure nothing falls through the cracks, they have to be talking to one another.

With the decline in the value of the dollar, have you noticed an uptick in demand for your services?

Absolutely. Our exports are definitely up, and it is reflected in our export value. Our (statewide) exports are around $25 billion per year. I feel like the demand for our services has surged probably more than the actual export growth. ... Exporting is a long-term venture, so for companies it’s going to take a couple of years. If a company is new to exporting or new to a particular country, you’re looking at a year or two lead time before they’re going to start seeing sales. So based on anecdotal observation of what we’ve been seeing, I’m sure there’s going to be a big surge next year, or the year after, in our exports.

What kinds of businesses are best suited for the current export climate?

The good thing about Massachusetts is that we have the kinds of businesses that are successful exporters by nature of where we are and the kinds of companies we already have. Obviously technology (is one industry where exporting is successful), there’s a huge demand for that overseas. But even the non-technology companies that we have here, they’re typically producing very niche products that are unique or that are leaders in their field. And any time, even if it’s industrial products or food products or whatever, if you have a company like that, it’s the type of company that will do well overseas.

What are your goals for the Massachusetts Export Center?

One thing we hope to do in the coming year is develop an export compliance consortium so that individuals within companies who are working on compliance issues can network with one another, share best practices, provide ideas on what they’re doing for their compliance programs. There’s only so much we can do as a government agency to help companies, but where we see the real need is for companies to talk to each other. So we’re creating a forum to facilitate that.