A delayed shipment once produced a recognisable trail: a stamped document, a freight forwarder’s telephone number, a bank officer who knew the customer, and perhaps a telex message that had to be read carefully. In the debate over analogue trade versus digital commerce, that physical trail is often dismissed as slow and obsolete. It was slow. Yet it also made responsibility visible, and that remains one of the central tests of any trading system.

Digital commerce has changed the speed, reach and cost of selling across borders. A small British manufacturer can identify an overseas prospect, quote in another currency, arrange transport and receive payment with tools that would once have been available only to a substantial exporter. That is a considerable achievement. But the movement of goods between countries has not become merely a matter of clicking a button. Goods still need to meet specifications, be packed properly, insured, declared, financed and delivered to someone who is willing and able to take them.

The useful question, therefore, is not whether analogue methods should defeat digital ones. It is where each provides the discipline, evidence and judgement that trade requires.

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A fresh look at export training and qualifications

By Gerald Bratley MCIEx

A customer places an export order. The price has been agreed and production can meet the requested shipment date. Can the order go straight to the factory? Before releasing it, someone needs to check the destination’s requirements, whether an export licence or independent inspection is needed, and whether the proposed packing is acceptable. If payment is by documentary credit, someone must check that the credit calls for documents the exporter can actually obtain and present on time. An inspection certificate that cannot be issued after shipment is a problem to catch when checking the order. By the time the goods have sailed, it may be too late.

That is the sort of judgement I want an export qualification to develop and test. I have spent nearly six decades in international trade and have been a full member of the Institute of Export since 1973. This enquiry began with a practical idea. Could we retain the expertise of retired practitioners and make it available to smaller manufacturers and service businesses looking to export for the first time or enter new markets? When I approached the Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade, I wanted help identifying members who had done that work. The Institute was unable to identify for me which members had held hands-on practitioner roles and which had worked in supporting roles. Both kinds of experience have value. A business that needs help choosing a market, pricing an order or putting together a documentary credit presentation needs to know which of those jobs an adviser has actually done.

That prompted a second question. How does the Institute establish the practical expertise of the people who develop, teach and review its courses, and what must learners demonstrate before they pass?

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A UK manufacturer export turnaround is rarely achieved by a new brochure, a trade fair stand or a favourable movement in sterling. Those things may help at the margin, but they do not repair the reasons why a capable factory has lost overseas business. In manufacturing, export recovery usually begins with a candid examination of the product, the people selling it and the company’s ability to deliver exactly what it has promised.

For much of my working life, British firms have spoken of exports as though they were a separate activity, to be resumed when the home market softens. Overseas customers do not see it that way. They judge a supplier by performance over time: the quality of the goods, the speed and accuracy of replies, the availability of spares, the clarity of documents and the willingness to deal with a problem after the lorry or container has departed. A manufacturer that wants to return to export markets must first become dependable in its own eyes.

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A promising enquiry, an attractive product and a buyer abroad are not, by themselves, an export business. What makes a good exporter is the ability to carry a transaction from first contact to final payment without losing control of the many practical details in between. That ability is learned over time, often through costly mistakes, and it is very different from simply being a successful salesman at home.

Exporting is sometimes described as selling overseas. This is true, but inadequate. A domestic sale may involve a familiar legal system, short delivery distances and established habits of payment. An export sale can involve another language, another commercial culture, an unfamiliar distribution chain, a long sea passage, currency movement, customs requirements and a buyer whose creditworthiness is not easily judged from a distance. Each introduces risk. The good exporter does not pretend these risks do not exist. He or she identifies them early and decides which can be accepted, insured against, priced into the contract or avoided.

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A training room can look impressive: a polished slide deck, a full attendance list and a trainer who speaks confidently for the allotted time. Yet none of this proves that anyone has learned how to do the job when a customer is waiting, a document is wrong, or an unexpected risk appears. Good training must be delivered by skilled practitioners because useful knowledge is not merely information transferred from one person to another. It is judgement, developed through repeated contact with reality.

This distinction matters in every profession, but nowhere more clearly than international trade. Exporting is sometimes presented as a sequence of forms and procedures that can be learned in a day. In truth, it is a chain of decisions. Marketing, country selection, selling, packing, transport, insurance, payment terms, documentation, contracts and regulation each demand particular knowledge. A failure at one point can undo sound work at all the others.

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