Area businesses gain ‘concierge’ services to help them grow through exporting

Pulse Aerospace makes drones. Big ones. Drones with a takeoff weight of 55 pounds that can, for example, fly out over the ocean and scan for sharks or drop rescue equipment for flailing swimmers.

The Lawrence-based company is growing quickly. In the first quarter this year it booked more business than it did all of last year.

What helped the surge? Exporting.

“We seek out sales wherever they come,” said Mark Hrinya, vice president of operations and finance at the privately held, 3-year-old manufacturer. “There are regulations in the U.S. that kind of limit our market but are more open in other countries. The U.S. has airspace restrictions, and not all the drone regulations are finalized yet, so the market is just more open in other countries.”

That’s why Pulse Aerospace drones are helping lifeguards in Australia. It’s also why it represents companies that are increasing their sales — and the area’s trade balance — through exporting. Trouble is, there aren’t nearly as many such companies as Kansas City area development officials would like.

A Brookings Institution study two years ago found Kansas City trailing peer cities in its economic growth rate and use of exporting. That led to creation of the Kansas City Global Cities Initiative and now the Kansas City Metro Export Plan, which was unveiled Thursday.

The 16-month-long civic effort has produced a “concierge” concept — centered at the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s World Trade Center — that will link dozens of resources to help companies such as Pulse Aerospace sell their goods and services outside the United States.

Exporting has been identified as one way for the Kansas City area to catch up to peer cities that have been growing at a much faster rate. The area’s regional exports currently are valued at about $10 billion a year. Planners don’t have a specific dollar goal in mind, but the strategy calls for connecting 100 companies to export assistance providers within five years.

Educating people about exporting also is a way to improve understanding of a hot political issue, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.

That formal agreement with 12 Asian and Pacific countries, announced in February by the Obama administration, was presented with the stated goal of promoting U.S. economic growth. Backers say the tariff-eliminating pact, similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, will help the U.S. take greater advantage of global markets. Critics disagree, saying that NAFTA hurt U.S. business.

There’s little indication that Congress will hold a ratification vote before the November elections.

Regardless of the political headwinds, the strategy unveiled Thursday has already begun to improve communication between existing export-related services and reach out to potential exporters. A video produced by Black & Veatch explains the effort.

The concierge concept, borrowed from the hotel industry, is designed to be a time saver for small-business operators and startups that don’t have the time or expertise to navigate complicated exporting laws, certifications and procedures. They could benefit from a one-stop-shop — an exporting concierge — who can link them with the right lawyers, the right agencies, the right departments.

“We could have gotten to the (export) sales point on our own,” Hrinya said earlier this week. “I’d been networking with anyone I could find to help me figure this out, but the chamber already had a list of people who could do what I was looking for. It was a big time saver so I didn’t have to build the list myself.” Hrinya referred to the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.

Under the #GoGlobalKC hashtag, 15 “implementation partners” and 25 economic development councils, chambers or government departments have signed on to the export plan, with the lofty goal of applying “market intelligence to develop targeted, integrated export-related services and strategies to connect our region’s companies to customers across the world.”

The group is led by Paul Weida of Black & Veatch and Chris Gutierrez of KC SmartPort.

According to Brookings, which two years ago worked with JP Morgan Chase and the Mid-America Regional Council on a major economic development report, the Kansas City region’s export economy constitutes a smaller share of total local goods and services than similar metro areas.

That study led to creation of the local Global Cities Initiative plus the KC Rising Initiative — both aiming to encourage sustainable growth by building on existing strengths.

Local leading export industries already include motor vehicle manufacturing, freight and port services, communications equipment, fabricated metal products and information technology. But export plan leaders say there is far greater opportunity. An estimated 53 percent of local businesses don’t export, and surveys find that non-exporters don’t even express interest in it.

Furthermore, the export plan creators found that many exporters have simply responded to potential customers’ inquiries and didn’t independently or intentionally pursue international business. And three-fourths of exporting companies said they were unaware of, or didn’t take advantage of, existing exporting assistance.

Within five years, the export strategy aims to elevate the Kansas City region’s “export intensity” to match or exceed the U.S. export intensity. Measured as a share of gross domestic (or regional) product, that means the Kansas City area would increase its export share by about 2 percentage points to be on par with the national share.

Other backers of the Kansas City Global Cities Initiative and the new export plan include the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City and the Kansas City Area Development Council.

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Area businesses gain ‘concierge’ services to help them grow through exporting."