Tips for exporters

A number of AIM students in the Master in Entrepreneurship Program are in the food export business and deal in such basic staples as milkfish or bangus and bananas. Under our guru mentoring system, they go through a module where the operations and processes of their entrepreneurial venture are evaluated against market requirements.

We have also adopted the same framework in our outreach activity in Cavite where we have facilitated provincial strategic planning workshops to help in the development of more local entrepreneurs.

During one of those workshop sessions, the participants identified several indigenous food products with export potential that can be the subject of entrepreneurial ventures. These include the smoked fish or tinapa of Salinas, mussels or tahong chips, and coffee.

The following illustrates how our guru/mentors proceed with the evaluation of the operations and processes of an entrepreneurial venture against market requirement.

The first tip: How is quality defined? Who defined it?

Do not forget that even if your buyer from abroad accepts your product quality, it must also meet the importing country’s regulations and quality definition. The buyer’s preferences will represent the customer needs. I call these the differentiators.

However, import rules represent the country’s need to safeguard health and other general public safety and protection requirements. I call these the minimum requirements. Clearly, an exporter must first meet the minimum requirement before even thinking of differentiation.

Therefore, it is important to first find out what are the importing government’s requirements for your product category. Make sure you are updated on these requirements.

Check your buyers’ requirements. Make sure that they are not in conflict with the regulatory requirements. Your buyer’s preference must not violate the government’s rules.

The second tip: Plot out your process and determine which part of the process affects your ability or inability to meet the government requirements. Do the same for the buyer’s preference.

Use any process mapping technique to define the various activities involved in your process. Make sure it covers everything. For cultured or fish pond products, start with pond preparation activities and end with the activities that maintain the temperature of the final product during transport. Do not consider only the processing of the food product. Some of the quality determinants are found outside food processing.

As you review the process, pinpoint exactly where the specific quality determinant is made or unmade. If the quality determinant is size or dimensions, where is size determined in the process? Is it in the choice of specie? Is it in the wait it is cue? Is it determined by the cutting instruments? Is it determined by the skill of the cutter? Do this matching process between your process and all the quality requirements. This is a test of the mastery of the process. After this, one will know the reason why particular processes are done.

The third tip: Standardize your process. Make sure the process is done consistently.

This is an important tip for volume exporters. Each product item must be consistent with the rest. Shipments must be consistent with each other. There must not be any differentiation between products and shipments. This means that the process identified in the second tip must be the standard. Avoid deviations from the process.

The fourth tip: Explain the importance of the process and quality match and then train your people rigorously on this.

If your people understand the essence of the process, they can be the source of process improvements. Do not let your people simply follow the process. Let them understand why they must do it.

If your people know the essence of the process, they will not only become knowledgeable workers. They will also become the source of infinite improvements. Do not be afraid that your trade secrets will be known. Let it be so. It will be the built-in pressure for the business to improve. It will also allow more people to adopt the best process and provide more volume for the export market.

If these tips are adopted, it will eventually be discovered that the export market is indeed larger than original estimates.

These tips are currently being adopted by both the student-entrepreneurs of the MEP as well as by the entrepreneurs and enterprise developers of Cavite. It is a process that all master entrepreneurs use to become superior players.

In fact, it is good to choose the most stringent country as the source of the standard. Better yet, it is advisable to meet the highest government requirements. It is best to be ahead of the wave. Soon, other government will follow.

(Alejandrino Ferreria is the associate dean of the Asian Center for Entrepreneurship of the Asian Institute of Management. For further comments and inquiries, you may contact him at: [email protected]. Published "Entrepreneur’s Helpline" columns can be viewed on the AIM website at http//: www.aim.edu.ph).