The World is Your Oyster - Never before in history have conditions been more favorable for small businesses to go global in the search for markets. In the United States alone there are 230,000 small businesses exporting. These small businesses export nearly US$182 Billion annually. This means that in the 21st century, nearly one-third of all U.S. exports come from small businesses with under 500 employees.

Even more interesting is the fact that a mere 10% of small businesses are exporting. Obviously, there is plenty of room for more small businesses to get their share of global markets.

Which small businesses are doing the most exporting today? They fall into three categories:

• Companies which manufacture or distribute niche products. Finding markets for export products depends not so much on price as on uniqueness and expertise. Trying to compete with very low-cost providers in places such as China on basic, undifferentiated goods is not what we are talking about. But we are talking about changing the paradigm, and exporting goods which are the best in the world at their intended purpose. Niche products which require special expertise to manufacture or create, or which fill specific market needs are hot exports today. Examples include home furnishings, sporting goods and recreational equipment, and software applications.



• Internet-based businesses or online services that can be delivered across borders. The Internet is a crucial tool for exporters. Businesses which have an online presence are far more likely to find markets for export -- by a ratio of 20-to-1. Even service businesses are more likely to be able to find export markets, if they have an online presence. Examples include eBay sellers, site translation services, search engine optimization services, eLearning businesses, logistics coordinators, and border compliance providers.



• Construction materials and energy sources. China has a red-hot economy right now. It is consuming huge amounts of construction and building materials and related services. Supplying China with the basic materials it needs to manufacture end goods is a key area of exports from the U.S. and other Western countries today, including: steel, scrap metal, engineering services, architectural services, environmental consulting, and of course building products.

The world can indeed be your oyster if you keep up to date on what is happening across the globe, and get the right help to get into exporting.

Editor's note: We're very pleased to bring you the thirty-second in our popular weekly series of PowerBlog Reviews of other weblogs...


This week we review the @rgumente blog.

The @rgumente blog is a Romanian business blog, written entirely in English. This is a gem of a blog that keeps getting better and better.

Dragos Novac, a software entrepreneur, edits @rgumente. He offers keen insights about business in general and specifically about business in Romania.

Romania is a big mystery to many in the English-speaking world, in part because the Romanian language is not often taught in English-speaking schools and universities.

A source like @rgumente is indispensable if you want to understand the Romanian business environment -- and make connections there. With the Romanian software industry playing an increasing role in outsourced software development, that could be very important.

In addition to Romanian business matters, @rgumente covers European Union business and cultural issues, software industry issues, and general business issues of all kinds.

Recent posts covered everything from the Romanian environment for high-tech business as compared with the U.S., to commentary on what blogs are good for, to the IBM/PeopleSoft deal.

This post with insight into Romania's culture and the whole outsourcing situation is the sort of unique insight you can expect at @rgumente:

"Understanding the cultural differences and acting accordingly is clearly one of the sensitive issues on the whole offshoring agenda. For example in India they discovered that fingerprinting the programmers for security reasons touched a very sensible chord on the Indians - fingerprinting is considered offensive in the Indian culture. I think that this is an important card Romanians can play in the offshore project contracting - besides being Europeans Romanians are fairly adaptable and rather open minded."

"@rgumente is a great tool helping me synthesize topics of interest for me and my business. As such, besides acting as a business intelligence repository, the writing gives me the opportunity of crystallizing my thoughts and ideas while having permanent feedback from my readers. Last, but not least, it gives me the chance of meeting very interesting people both online and offline, people otherwise I wouldn't have had the chance of meeting."