Market Entry Roadmap
Straight talk about Asian trade
Since 2019, we have helped 47 firms from Manchester and the surrounding North West move into Asian markets. Most business owners spend months reading generic reports that don't tell them how to hire a driver or pay local VAT. Our roadmap is different. It is a 12-page document that tells you exactly what to do from day 1 to day 90. We don't use complex words or charts that don't lead to sales. We focus on the mechanics of opening a business in places like Vietnam or Thailand without wasting your budget on unnecessary office space.
The first 30 days of the plan focus on your legal foundation. We handle the paperwork for local law compliance so you don't get stuck in a loop with regional authorities. For example, in a project for a textile firm in Q2 2024, we identified that their planned business licence was wrong for their export model. We fixed the application in 11 days, saving them roughly £3,200 in filing fees that would have been lost if they had applied alone. We tell you which local banks, such as Vietcombank or Kasikornbank, have the best English-speaking support for SMEs.
Logistics often eat up the most cash for UK firms. (Honestly, most people get the warehouse location wrong on their first try because they look at a map instead of checking the road quality.) Our roadmap identifies specific bonded warehouses near the Port of Hai Phong or Bangkok. We found that 62% of our clients save about £1,840 in monthly storage costs by choosing regional hubs instead of high-rent city centres. We list the exact coordinates and the contact person for the warehouse manager so you can get a quote in 48 hours.
Hiring staff is the next big hurdle. We do not just give you a list of recruitment agencies. We vet 9 candidates based on your specific requirements and present the top 3 for you to interview. This saves you about 38 hours of Zoom calls with people who don't fit the role. We also explain the local payroll rules. You will know the exact social insurance costs for a team of 4 people before you even send out an offer letter. This prevents nasty surprises in your quarterly accounts later in the year.
We also handle the partner matching process. Instead of broad searches, we look for 7 local suppliers per category that meet UK quality standards. In October 2024, we helped a small electronics workshop find a partner in Ho Chi Minh City that cut their lead time from 6 weeks to 19 days. We provide you with the direct mobile numbers of the factory owners, not just a generic sales email address. This ensures you are talking to the people who actually make the decisions on the factory floor.
The roadmap comes with a fixed project fee of £4,150. There are no hidden costs or monthly retainers while we write it. You get a practical list of tasks with specific dates and estimated costs in GBP. You will know your total investment requirements before you spend a penny on rent or stock. This approach works best for mid-sized firms that need to move fast but don't have a massive internal team to handle the research. We typically deliver the final 12-page plan within 19 business days of our first meeting.