“UKTI Japan delivered a visit schedule that met our need to research this market effectively; I met the right people within the sectors under investigation”
Owen Hillis, Norbar Torque Tools
Norbar needed expert help to arrange a B2B market research programme in Japan. UKTI’s Matthew Matsumoto-Prouten and Norbar’s Owen Hillis met in London to discuss plans and review several different options. Subsequently, Hillis concluded that Matt and his team could deliver a service that would directly reflect the company’s needs of developing relevant contacts within specific industry sectors. Mr Hillis felt that UKTI’s service provided excellent value for money.
The first Market Introduction Service was commissioned in December 2011. As part of this, UKTI Japan arranged a visit programme for Mr Hillis to contact automotive and marine industry representatives in February 2012. After this visit UKTI produced a second market report on the wind-power generation and aviation industry sectors.
9 of the 15 companies UKTI Japan contacted on Norbar’s behalf expressed interest in their products and agreed to meet them, with Mr Hillis making two further visits to Japan in May and in September to follow up. UKTI was able to facilitate meetings with relevant purchasing departments across a wide range of sectors.
Norbar has been pleased with the result of the contacts UKTI identified in the wind-power and aviation sectors which are new sectors for the company in Japan. Business has grown since – with sales this year looking promising.
Owen added: “Norbar is continuing to work closely with our long-standing Japanese distributor. It is partly through UKTI’s support that we are projecting that our Japanese sales in 2012 will be more than three times our sales in 2011. Our distributor is delighted to see that Norbar is actively helping grow the business by helping them to build business in new sectors; wind-power and aviation.”
