2000 small and medium-sized businesses will be able to grow their digital export operation through a series of new seminars.
Baroness Fairhead today (Tuesday 27 November) attended the launch of Google's Digital Garage initiative to upskill London's SMEs and help them grow their businesses both at home and abroad.
Ahead of Small Business Saturday this weekend, the Minister announced a new partnership between the Exporting is GREAT campaign and Google, which will see the Digital Garage deliver an exporting education series for 2000 SMEs in 2019.
Focusing on helping businesses grow their digital export operation, the events will be hosted in Manchester, Edinburgh and on university campuses around the UK. The training will be split into three modules which focus on finding new global opportunities, setting up new export operations and marketing.
Speaking at an event in London, the Minister of State at the Department for International Trade, Baroness Fairhead, said:
This exciting initiative between Google and the GREAT campaign will give SMEs up and down the country the opportunity to gain valuable insights into how to start or expand their export operations.
The Department for International Trade has recently launched the government's Export Strategy, which was developed with businesses. It offers export support for all UK companies and includes finance from our award-winning credit agency, UK Export Finance, advice from our network of Export Champions and a wealth of resources and opportunities on GREAT.gov.uk
Ronan Harris Google MD UK and Ireland said:
We're thrilled to bring the Google Digital Garage and, for the first time, offer free digital skills training to Londoners and businesses right here in the capital. The Evening Standard's Future London campaign offered an incredible opportunity to partner so we can provide training and support for those who wish to learn crucial skills for the digital age.
We firmly believe everyone should be able to benefit from the opportunities that technology brings and we want to give people the skills they need to grow their confidence, career or business.
Looking forward to 2019, there is tremendous potential to envisage what we can achieve from working with the Department for International Trade to roll out a brand new training offering to small and medium enterprises providing valuable insight to support their export operations.
A recent Google business survey found that 70% of SMEs said that they lacked the skills needed to find the best overseas markets to enter.
Both DIT and Google are working to break down barriers to trade, with the education series the latest joint effort between government and the private sector to help British businesses.
The new partnership builds on an existing relationship which saw DIT and Google working together to build a new online 'Market Finder' tool which allows companies to find overseas opportunities at the click of a mouse.
Baroness Fairhead recently launched the government's Export Strategy which sets out how DIT will support businesses of all sizes to make the most of the opportunities presented by markets around the world.
A government-led collaboration with business, developed after extensive engagement with a range of UK firms - the Strategy sets a new ambition from government to increase exports as a proportion of UK GDP to 35%.
