Member Article

Business opportunities with IFB Club

The organisers of the International Festival of Business aim to set up 5,000 meetings for UK businesses with potential new customers, partners and suppliers through a bespoke business brokerage service.

Companies which join the IFB Business Club, which has just been launched, will be able to access a range of facilities and services during the 50-day festival, including the brokerage service.

Members will have the unique opportunity to gain business advice via one-to-one appointments and business brokerage sessions with specialists in particular sectors and markets.

Advisors will come from a range of key bodies, including UKTI, CBI, British Chambers of Commerce, the manufacturers’ organisation EEF, and the Federation of Small Businesses.

Individual brokerage sessions will cover all aspects of international trade and export, focusing on supporting SMEs in particular to expand their businesses into international markets.

The International Festival for Business is a 50-day business festival being hosted in Liverpool city region during June-July 2014. It will be an ambitious global showcase for great British industry across multiple sectors and will champion UK businesses to new markets, new products and new partners.

Comprising over 100 world-class events, the festival is a key part of the Government’s ambition to promote economic growth, rebalance the economy and double UK exports by 2020.

Organisers are emphasising that companies must join the IFB Business Club to be able to gain access to the business brokerage sessions, which are designed to support the festival’s drive to assist businesses extend their international reach.

IFB Business Club members will also enjoy benefits including IFB programme information, access to transport links, free Wi-Fi, free hot-desk facilities and meeting spaces, use of an IFB trading floor in the IFB Hub and an ongoing programme of free trade, investment and market and sector events.

Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson said: “At the heart of our vision for the festival was how businesses from across Liverpool city region and the UK could benefit from a 50-day festival with a truly international scope.

“It is the IFB Hub that realises this ambition and the IFB Business Club is the essence of the festival, through which all businesses, large and small, can move to the next level.”

Max Steinberg, chair of IFB 2014, added: “By becoming a member your business requirements will be pinpointed very quickly, enabling us to put you in front of the right people, whether for advice on IP from lawyers for example or sitting down with UK or international buyers, investors or suppliers and doing deals.

“We had a small business club at World Expo in Shanghai and since 2010 it has generated millions of pounds’ worth of contracts for members and I am absolutely confident we will surpass that at IFB.”

Firms can register now to join the IFB Business Club and take advantage of these unique and free business opportunities.

As a registered IFB Business Club member, firms also gain free access to the IFB App in order to personalise and maximise the festival experience. The IFB App will be available to download from April 2014.

One of IFB 2014’s prime objectives is to foster new business relationships that may lead to direct commercial trade and investment outcomes for UK companies.

The IFB 2014 team has created a number of mechanisms to match up potential customers, suppliers and investors before and during IFB 2014. This service is called IFB Business Brokerage and is free of charge. Opportunities include:

Numerous individual IFB 2014 events with an explicit focus on ‘meet the buyer’ (both UK and international) and on brokering new B2B contacts, e.g. UKTI’s seven target market events focusing on Africa, Benelux/EU, China/Hong Kong, India, Latin America, South East Asia and the US.

. The opportunity to network with trade delegations and international buyers from around the world at the IFB Hub and associated introductions to potential international investors and supply partners,

. B2B meeting slots with senior buyers from more than 20 of the largest corporates in the UK

. UK and international business opportunities ‘bulletin board’

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .