By Oliver Everett CEO, The Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council (CWEIC)

With the EU referendum behind us the UK is likely to reassert its interest in the Commonwealth - not as a replacement to our European neighbours but as additional potential markets. Our role at CWEIC has always been to encourage trade with both, yet there is, and will be, an undoubted uptick in interest in accessing opportunities across this diverse group of nations.

Looking beyond the coming efforts to sign free trade agreements with Commonwealth member nations, the question remains over how best to increase UK firms' access to these markets. After all, here are some of the largest and most dynamic markets in the world - although their sheer diversity suggests that help is required when it comes to exploiting the opportunity. Of course, it is here where technology can help - using online platforms geared towards creating the very connections required for success.

The Commonwealth Trade Initiative (CTI) aims to do just that. Launched by CWEIC and powered by technology from AMPP Group, this is a new free-to-join B2B digital platform that enables members to easily showcase their products and services, access thought leadership and peer discussion, and develop new business opportunities that would otherwise go untapped.

The landscape for B2B online marketplaces

The CTI is an example of the growing trend for online marketplaces, alternately described as digital trading platforms or "e-hubs". Alibaba (China) or Indiamart (India) are two leading examples, with both boasting membership numbers going into the millions. The appeal of doing business on the web this way is clear. By bringing together large numbers of relevant buyers and sellers, and often coming with a range of features such as automated transactions, online markets expand the choices available to buyers, give sellers access to new customers, and reduce transaction costs for all parties.

And because the marketplaces use software that is usually hosted on the cloud, they can scale with minimal additional investment - promising even more benefits and user features as the markets grow. That said, the number of such online markets are proliferating, making it increasingly difficult to make sense of the landscape. Yet B2B online platforms usually have in common a number of benefits, often especially so for SMEs.

One key feature is having a high investment/returns ratio, with membership often being free of charge. For this, access to an entire list of contacts is offered, although it is usually more than a mere list of buyers and suppliers. It can include traders, industrialists, brokers, shippers and wholesalers from anywhere across the globe. With site members actively looking for business opportunities, response rates are likely to be much higher than random listings available from scouring the web.

Benefits for buyers and sellers

Of course, the benefits of the marketplace depend on whether you are using the platform as a buyer or seller. Yet cost savings can be achieved for both. For sellers there is improved liquidity, with marketplaces offering a wide potential customer base, including customers located in different geographic areas and industries. These liquidity improvements come at a low cost, although the extensive reach offered by a marketplace can be achieved at a fraction of the cost associated with traditional sales channels such as mass mailings, telemarketing, face-to-face sales calls, and so on.

Buyers can enjoy efficiency gains by automating their purchasing tasks and reducing their reliance on paperwork and manual processes. For example, automating procurement functions drastically lowers the cost of processing a transaction. A survey by Aberdeen Group, a US technology firm, found that transaction processing costs were reduced by as much as 70% by using B2B procurement platforms.

For newer businesses, the visibility offered by B2B platforms is unmatched. They allow businesses to reach users across different geographies and cater to the needs of a global audience. This helps them increase top-line growth, as well as reduce seasonality by diversifying the customer base. It also helps establish the business as a global brand, something particularly advantageous for SMEs who might not have massive marketing budgets.

Of course, when gaining access to a vast database, identifying the right type of relevant leads can be difficult. Yet online B2B marketplaces can assist by automating the process. By configuring a profile and/or specifying keyword alerts or triggers, the marketplace user can be notified when a buyer or supplier posts a relevant product or business opportunity. Indeed,

filtering out buying and selling leads that are not relevant to your business enables one to focus on the opportunities with the highest probability of success.

Over the past several years, many companies have found traffic from search engines increasingly ineffective - requiring a substantial investment in time and effort to sift the results, as well as significant costs in being highly ranked. Online B2B portals, meanwhile, can act as a shortcut. Most B2B portals invest heavily in SEO and SEM campaigns allowing them to rank well on competitive keywords. Listing your business on these websites allows users to piggy-back on their search engine strength, as well as have relevant traffic routed to company websites with the minimum effort and expenditure.

The Commonwealth as a market

But how does the CTI stand out from the crowd? By linking markets in the Commonwealth, that's how. This diverse group of 53 countries spans every inhabited continent. Members range from the vast (India) to the tiny (Nauru), with economies that may be advanced, emerging or developing. And this diversity brings security. Most other geo-political or trading blocs are regional, which means they are vulnerable to local economic shocks, natural disasters, or political instability. The Commonwealth's global nature, however, means that it is insulated from these potentially system-wide shocks.

With respect to demographics, too, the Commonwealth story is compelling. At least 60% of its combined 2.3 billion population are under the age of 30, and it has a combined GDP of approximately £8 trillion. By 2020, the Commonwealth will have 1 billion middle class consumers, 40% of the global workforce and trade between member countries is expected to double to £700 billion.

With English as the lingua franca, with legal systems often based on English Common Law, and with many similar business customs and practices, it is, on average, 19% cheaper to do business between Commonwealth countries than non-Commonwealth countries. And on top of this, the Commonwealth has a huge hunger for UK goods and services. Brand Britain goes down well - meaning that these are markets UK exporters should not be ignoring.

The Commonwealth Trade Initiative

The CTI itself utilises proprietary technology from AMPP Group. Free to join, it uses a sophisticated business matching algorithm that automatically provides users with targeted business leads based on their user profile information. The algorithm is constantly at work behind the scenes to gather information to produce daily matches, combining big data and machine learning to automate the procurement, lead generation and networking process.

Of course, the Commonwealth has always been a strong potential market for UK exporters. And while recent events should help put the opportunities front of mind, the CTI can ensure that the right contacts are made - turning thoughts and ideas into plans and sales.

For more information visit:
www.cweic.org
www.tradecommonwealth.com
www.amppgroup.com