Ontario-Quebec Global International Trade

According to a survey made by L'Institut de la Statistique du Québec", in 2007, 55,6% of the Small and Medium Size Businesses in Quebec with 20 to 499 employees were involved in international activities. From this study and from the queries made on www.icriq.com and based on Ontario and Quebec GNP's, we'd draw the follwing picture:


International Activities 
About 12 000 companies between 20 and 499 employees are trading outside their province
About 9 900 companies involved in international activities are from the manufacturing  
About 5 400 companies involved in international activities were from the service industries.
About 4 600 companies were contracting with companies outside their province
About 1 500 companies are making direct Investment outside their province


Trading products 
About 10 300 companies are exporting directly to clients outside their province
About 3 700 companies are using distributors outside their province


Investment 
About 1 500 companies are investing outside their province
About 970 companies are investing in real estate outside their province
About 815 companies are involved in takeover outside their province
About 375 companies made joint ventures outside their province



Contracts 

Sub-Contracting
About 4 665 companies are involved as sub contracting to companies outside their province;
About 2 100 companies  are making subcontracting agreements for companies outside their province.


Licensing
About 780 companies are acquiring licenses outside their province
About 1 400 companies are selling licenses outside their province



Strategic Alliances
About 1 200 companies are making strategic alliances with a partner established outside their province
About 1 020 companies are making strategic alliances on markets outside their province

The Canadian environmental market

There would be over 6 600 private companies directly involved in environmental products and services in Canada;

There would be a total of 105 00 establishments (private and public) who have at least one employee involved in environmental tasks.

The environmental industry would have a total of 503 000 jobs in Canada.

About the number of Environmental companies in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia

Quebec
In the Province of Quebec, there is 1600 businesses and more than 34 000 jobs related to green technologies and environmental companies with an average growth of  41.4% in the past 5 years.
Investments in this field past from 16,8 M$  in 2006 to 59,4 M$ in 2007. www.mdeie.gouv.qc.ca/index.php?id=84&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=1494&tx_ttnews[currentCatUid]=68&tx_ttnews[backPid]=4563&no_cache=1

Ontario
2,467 environmental companies employs more than 62 000 jobs are related to Environment www.2ontario.com/industry/environment.asp

Alberta 
Almost 1,330 companies, employing 26,000 Albertans and generating more than $3.5 billion in revenues. www.albertacanada.com/industries/1160.html

British Columbia
Over 1,300 companies with revenues close to $2 billion. The main components of the sector are environmental construction, recycling, and solid and hazardous waste management, consulting services, water and wastewater goods and services, renewable energy, air pollution and noise control, analytical services, and green building and sustainable urban planning.
www.bceia.com/documents/overview_on_BCs_environment_industry.pdf

Overcoming sales challenges in the personal insurance industry

There is about 80 000 insurance agents in Canada. Each year 20 000 of them have invested a tremendous amount of time and efforts in this profession and nevertheless decide to abandon.

The environment of Insurance Agents in their industry
The Insurance Industry looses about 75% of its talents after three years. In average it is about 25% of losses per year but it would not be surprising to reach 30% of turnover the first year. In Canada, this situation would translate into 20 000/80 000 insurance agents who invested tremendous amount of time and efforts in this profession and nevertheless, each year, decide to abandon their profession.

There may be a wide variety of reason why insurance agents abandon but we can also explain this situation with simple observations and calculations.

The prevailing culture of the insurance industry is to screen all of the contacts a new agent can bring and afterward, if the agent cannot renew its contacts base efficiently all by himself, he/she abandons; the insurance agency focus then to hire new candidates who own a new contact list.

This business structure brings results but is not as efficient as it could be in times where the Inbdustry as a whole is in need of talents. It is an expensive business process, structure and culture: each agent lost represents 70 000 in sales lost and 35 000 in credits. 100 agents lost would represent losses of 7 million dollars in sales.

For Insurance Agents candidates, either they perform 2 contracts per week or they abandon sooner or later. Insurance Companies often use Talent Management Systems to manage their talent pool; so we'll use the words "talent pool" to represent the pool of candidates to the job of Insurance Agents. Here is the simple calculation explaining why so many talents abandon each year:

• If a talent wanted to make 90 000$ in revenues, he would need to sign 153 insurance contracts per year;
• To sign 153 contracts, it would mean over 3 contracts per week;
• To sign 3 contracts per week it would mean to meet 10 prospects per week;
• To find 10 prospects per week it would mean to make 250 calls per week (4% success rate);
• Each call would take 5 minutes so it would take 20 hours;
• The "talent" would spend 2 hours in meetings with each of the 10 prospects + 45 minutes of transport per prospect: 20 hours+ 7.5 hours=27.5 hours ;
• He would make 2 meeting of 2 hours with the 3 clients+ 6 times 45 minutes of transport=12 hours + 4.5=16.5 ;
• He would spend 3 hours making proposals and reports = 3 ;
• He would spend 3 hours of administrative work at the office=3.

So in this scenario we are now at 70 hours and we are not even sure the talent would perform as planned.

In addition, to get involved and get trained, the talent would need to sacrifice probably 4 months of the year and he would have a dept to recover. Some candidates can go through this process; most don't. This is a terrible lost of talents.

It is true that some exceptional agents can make 300 000$ in revenues because they are exceptionally good or they have purchased their client base from an other agent.

In reality the average agent makes 35 000$ and generates about 70 000$ in sales.
Often, the average agent does not make its 35 000$ in revenue the first year.

So for a sales talent with a family, it does not make sense to pursue this scenario. But there is other ways to attract and keep talents.

This way of business consisting of recruiting a lot of agents and skimming their contacts in the very short term is one way but not the only one. The Insurance Industry has already recognized the talent crisis and started cooperation between its members to attract and seek the engagement of more.

Retain the equivalent of 1000 insurance agents from those 20 000 who abandon each year;

What if the industry was adjusting its ways and attracting more talents for a longer period of time?

Challenges

1. Increase insurance agents retention;
2. Increase recruiting efficiency,
3. Increase sales efficiency

Objectives

1. Increase Insurance agents retention by 2%
2. Increase recruiting efficiency by 2% each year;
3. Increase sales efficiency by 0,5% each year

Expected results

126 million dollars in sales:

• 70 million dollars in sales : 1000 Insurance full time jobs filled each generating 70 000$ in annual sales;
• 28 million dollars in sales: Increase recruiting efficiency by 2%: 2% x 20 000 agents abandoning=400 x 70 000$ in annual sales;
• 28 million dollars in sales: 80 000 insurance agents increasing their annual sales by 0,5%= 80 000 x 0.05% x 70000$ in sales

Information Technology Solution

• A Talent management suite integrated with
• A Talent Exchange solution enabling to create a talent pool dedicated to technical sales agents integrated with
• A Sourcing Solution helping to increase the pool of talents across the globe linked to
• An Opportunity Management System to follow up business opportunities and to report performance metrics.

Estimated annual costs of Information Technology Solution

• Approx 3440$ per business user;
• Free for Sales Agents ,

Pilot projects
Each insurance company can start with pilot projects.

Two pilot projects could be explored:
1. Part time Job project
To recruit 240 agents who abandoned or are about to abandon and offer them an environment to work part time. This pilot project would generate about 2 million dollars in sales; the equivalent of 30 full time agents. This pilot project could lead to a pool of talents driven in the whole industry.

2. Referring program targeting business owners.
This referring program would channel 1500 opportunities to a team of specialists trained and qualified to address complex situations often found with business owners. This pilot project would be based on a referral system and would initially target 1 million dollars in sales. The equivalent of 14 full time insurance agents.

Conclusion
The insurance companies would increase efficiency if they could retain more insurance agents through a part time program. But once an agent is lost from an insurance company, the agent lost is lost for good.

At the same time, the industry is facing an increasing demand and several difficulties to increase and retain sales force. If the idustry was sharing database infrastructures to retain the insurance agents who want to abandon. These infrastructures would enable Insurance agents to work part time.
Once signed up and engage again, these agents would simply be retrieved from the list of agents available.
Each company would therefore benefit from this pool of talents.

Pierre Dumas' background

• Pierre is a channel marketing consultant for business association and companies; he is also an IT entrepreneur ;
• He was president and founder of Fac-simile e commerce systems, a company which became subsidiary of a public company in 2000;
• In the past few months he has preselected near to 26 000 candidates in technologies (mostly engineers) using Monster Worldwide database in North America;
• As an IT entrepreneur he recruited employees in IT for his company;
• As Economic development agent for the Quebec Government he has made several interviews with business owners, preparing information and propositions;
• He developed plans with 4 public companies ;
• He also recruited distributors and representatives in Quebec, Ontario and east, mid-west, Mid Atlantic and South of United States;
• He designed and developed business in two IT projects (Fac-simile, SunCET) ;
• He is currently developing an Opportunity Management System in PHP and prepare partnership for its transition in HRXML as a value added solution TMS;
• He was administrative manager for a medical products assembly plant with over 100 employees;
• He launched and developed a plastic Injection molding company with 40 employees which shows that I know the culture of manufacturing companies and their employees;
• He made a lot of client prospection in IT services and developed a channel marketing approach and reward plan for business associations ;
• He made two conferences in the past few months and wrote several articles about recruiting commercial agents;
• He prepared and participated in a dozen of trade shows;
• He is interested in the mix of HR technologies, sales networks management and sales;
• After starting the recruiting process and training, he worked for over a year to asses the situation in the Insurance Industry ;
• He is familiar with the roles of the Insurance agents, insurance companies and l'Autorité des marchés financiers in the Province of Quebec.

Overcoming challenges related to Engineering Sales

Opportunity:
50 companies providing technological solutions in Aerospace, Life Sciences, Process & Industrial and information technology are interested engage Sales Engineers in United States, Europe and elsewhere in the world. Each are looking to engage 50 agents located in 50 different cities: 2500 Sales Engineers.

Challenges

1. Sales Engineers are amongst the most demanded talents in North America and Europe.
2. Brick and Mortar Staffing Offices

• Are not structured to help one company to find one engineers in 50 cities;
• Are not interested to provide flat rate recruiting services and share it with a business association;
• Are not used to pool talents and share information across borders;
• Are not providing Engineer Sales management outsourcing services.

Solution:

1. Source and create a pool of Sales Engineers who have access to opportunities of requests for proposals;
2. Provide Information technology supporting Engineers Sales management services outsourced to companies engaging with a large number of agents in several cities worldwide.

Information Technology Solution:

• Talent management suite integrated with
• Talent Exchange solution enabling to create a talent pool dedicated to technical sales agents on export markets integrated with
• Sourcing Solution helping to increase the pool of talents across the globe linked to
• Opportunity Management System to follow up business opportunities and to report performance metrics.
  

Estimated annual costs of Information Technology Solution:

• Approx 3440$ per corporate user;
• Free for Sales Agents
  

Benefits:
For Business Associations

• 2 600$ per corporate user
• 130 000$ for 50 solution providers

For staffing services

• 9400$ per corporate user;
• 470 000$ from 50 solution providers.

For solution providers

10 sales of 500 000$ (5 million dollars)

• if, for example, solution provider converts into sales 10% of 100 opportunities of request of proposal referred by 50 Sales Engineers located in 50 cities.

Channel Partner Program

Do you know a company interested to test commercial agents markets in North America?
Are you interested to join other members to share networks fixed costs?

This article presents the broad line of Industrial Affiliates Partner/Reseller program.

This opportunity is open to any consultant or business group who knows one company interested to test the markets in North America.

Goals
Industrial Affiliates' Partnership/Reseller Program helps organizations to develop new commercial services to their client base while reducing their costs during the implementation.

Our goals are to :

• Help recruit and manage referring agents for companies interested to Export in North America;
• Provide network statistics and candidates data to our partners and its clients;
• Gradually build a client base so our channel partners reach the break even point to have their own Talent Management System and its own database of candidates interested to become agents ;
• Increase reporting services.

Commissions or margins for channel Partners
Commissions or margins are very interesting for channel partners during the incubation process; between 23% and 35%. For example, 10 companies engaging in a market test and continuing with an annual plan could generate commissions or margins of 36 400$.
This program is ideal for:

• Export Consulting firms;
• R&D Consulting firms;
• Export Commissioners;
• Industrial Commissioners ;
• Industrial Park associations;
• Chapters of Import/Export Associations ;
• City Convention Centers;
• Business groups;
• Wholesalers ;
• Industry Associations;
• Chambers of Commerce.

Objectives with export companies
Our objectives are typically to :

• Help each company recruit 50 referring agents in 50 cities in North America. These referring agents are typically selected because companies believe they have access to 2 opportunities of requests for proposals;
• Contact 100, 200 or 1000 profiled candidates. From these profiled candidates we typically receive 25% of interest and 5% of recruited agents

Requirements for export companies

• An attractive offer for profiled candidates;
• Products with competitive edge;
• Define the profiles of candidates in vertical markets
  

Services provided to export companies

• Contact profiled candidates (20 to 40 candidates per week);
• Receive interest from an estimated 25% of contacts;
• Filter 5% candidates who have the most promising opportunities of requests for proposals for each company;
• Follow up with candidates interested but that have not been categorized in priority;
• Reports to Partners and companies;

Candidates contacted

Candidates interested

Referring agents recruited

• Follow up with referring agents

Benefits of the marketing approach
Our program is efficient because:

• It costs less to use an agents than a distributor;
• The program is entirely compatible with distributors and external sales force;
• Fixed marketing costs are shared between several companies;
• Affiliates develop a local presence creating long term loyalty and they will send market feed backs to manufacturers;
• Direct costs of the initial engagement are often covered at the first sale;
• ORP sent by external sales agents save cold calls time for salary paid technical sales persons ;
• External sales agents are only paid on qualifying or sales performance;
• External sales agents are engaging themselves with ther company because they

Think they can make money generating opportunities for the company;

Hold a tacit knowledge of the local market that does not have salary paid
technical sales force;

• Companies engage with each external sales agents because they are convinced

• 
  

  They have the knowledge and expertise required to explain the products to
  their contacts;

  
  
  
  

  Their contacts are in a decision position to request proposals;

  
  
  

  
  
• Helps to prepare and complete commercial missions and trade shows.
  

About Industrial Affiliates
Industrial Affiliates develops external sales agents networks on export markets, manage the and reports sales process to suppliers, external sales agents and other stakeholders. New opportunities are raised efficiently through external sales agents profiles in each targeted market defined by each exporter.
Opportunities of requests for proposals are sent to supplier and its channel partner who take care of customer relationships from beginning to end. Exporters receives opportunities of requests fr proposals they could hardly get otherwise. External sales agents are only paid when qualifying or sales actions are completed.
Developing an external sales force is an efficient way to overcome obstacles often found to introduce new products on export markets:

• Obstacle of distributors who do not want to take over the inventory costs or the costs to acquire knowledge and expertise
• Low efficiency of cold calls on new markets;
• Low return on investment of trade shows.

The costs of this marketing program are often recovered during the first sales. These value added services

• Recruit highly specialized commissioned paid sales force referring opportunities of requests for proposals (ORP);
• Systematically manage large numbers of external sales agents and ORP;
• Systematically develop long term business relationships bringing measurable results because they are managed under network user licenses with Industrial Affiliates and legal contracts between exporters and external sales agents;

Sends ORP directly to technical sales representatives or channel partners.
These services can be applied as well to sell products than to commercialize intellectual property in North America, in Europe or elsewhere in the world.

Over 57 000$ in costs reduction

Innovation should be considered as the introduction of a new idea that bring economic or social benefits. If a new product is not brought to the market, it does not bring social of economic benefits. So the point is to bring innovative products to the markets.
Innovations often take years to get widely used on the market. The goal is of course to reduce the span of time for its introduction.
Industrial Affiliates commercial clusters are innovative in many ways:

• It is an innovative organization targeting its diffusion on world markets;
• It targets the successful introduction of new products and process on world markets;
• It generates the benefits of the extended enterprise to the commercial value chain;
• It brings benefits while reducing costs.
  

This article is about the cost reductions brought by affiliate marketing in the business to business commerce.

Annual cost reduction over 57 000$

Commercial cluster typically target the engagements of 50 sales agents for each company as well as the identification of 100 opportunities of requests for proposal. We estimate that the engagement of external sales force through our system cost 57 000$ less than it would for the same results without our services:

• With an annual cost of 840$ the opportunity management system generate about 4920$ in savings.
• With an annual cost of 10 000$ we also estimate that companies can save over 52 000$ with the talent follow up system.
  

Here is how we come to these numbers.

The opportunity management system

The opportunity management system provides an online descriptive catalog enabling external sales force to disclose and reserve opportunities of requests for proposals. The OMS

• Registers the members acceptance of the network policies and practices;
• Register Sales Agents;
• Records opportunities of requests for proposals (ORP) coming from external sales force;
• Puts ORP in queues until they get validated by supplier;
• Communicate and records material facts from the ORP up to the step of paying commission to external sales force;
• Reports each step of the sales process to whom it concerns;
• Reports global performance of the sales channels.

Cost comparisons

Keep up communications with external sales force
To Keep external sales force informed, your business has to :
Generate trusts and confidence with sales people through general policies and practices;
Implement systematic 12 steps follow up about material and immaterial facts of the opportunities of requests for proposals, coming from 50 sales people, 200 leads, 100 opportunities of requests for proposals, 20 contracts;
Forward and coordinate communications between sales force, salary paid technical sales force and sales manager;

Total: over de 960 emails
Estimated work : 225 hours (15 minutes)
Comparative costs: 4 800$

Reporting activities to sales director.

• Report sales activities every week:
• Number of candidates contacted;
• Number of candidates interested to become sales agent;
• Number of sales agents engaged;
• Number of Opportunities of Requests for Proposals (ORP);
• Number of ORP accepted;
• Number of proposals submitted;
• Number of sales agents engaged;
• Number of closed deals;
• Amount of sales collected;
• Global amounts of commission.

Estimated time: 48 hours (4 hours par months during 12 months)

Comparative cost: 960$

Talent Follow up System (TFS)

The Talent Follow up System TFS allows to reach out to thousands of candidates specialized in over 50 industry categories and to filter them up to the point that we find sales agents who actually have access to opportunities of requests for proposals.

Costs Comparisons

Database access in North America

The recruiting process is carried on during 12 months.

There is four service options on the market to access databases reaching out talent in North America: 1 month service, 2 200$, 3 months service, 5 300$, 6 months service, 8 400$, 12 month service 13 000$;

Individually a small business could hardly afford these services for 12 months;
The equivalent monthly costs for these services for the 3,6 and 12 months are 1767$, 1 400$, 1 083$

If 5 companies were sharing costs to access database during 6 months twice during the year, it would each costs them 3 360$

With the commercial cluster the cost to access is only 650$ per member.

Comparative cost: 3 360$

Contact and filter candidates

To engage 50 sales agents, a company must typically contact 20 candidates per week during 50 weeks and select among 250 interested candidates

Estimated time: (500 hours)

Comparative cost: 10 000$

Time saved in cold calls

In front of the problem to find distributors interested to sell specialized products, services and solutions, companies often assigns technical sales agents to make cold calls on new markets, to go in trade shows and commercial missions. For example, a technical sales person could spend 20 hours per week for prospection and collect only 6 prospect per week, 15 requests for proposals and 5 contracts on new markets. With a marginal contribution of 50%, this way of prospecting would generate only 125 000$ for equipment sold at 50 000$ and cost around 32 400$ if we add participation to a trade show. The benefits of this approach are too low.

Affiliate marketing for B2B can save thousands of dollars in cold calls to companies

Estimated time: 1 000 hours

Comparative cost : 20 000$

Time and resources for Marketing and sales director

Small businesses usually promote their company through WEB sites and generally have few financial resources to:

• Hire a marketing and sales director able to compensate the inefficiencies of the traditional distribution chains on new markets;
• Implement push promotional strategies to salary paid sales representatives;
• Spend money in traditional media (such as magazines and trade shows) to build year after year, brand and recognition to large geographical markets;

As the external sales force on new markets do not create demand but respond to demand, marketing and sales directors must clearly define their product/service/technology/market strategy and provide a business environment for that will generate attention, interest, desire and action from potential clients generating opportunities of requests for proposals on new markets.

Estimated time from marketing/sales director for marketing activities without external support: 14 hours per week;

Estimated time from marketing/sales director for marketing activities with external support: 7 hours per week;

Time saved : 7 hours per week

Annual time saved: 350 hours at 30$/hrs

Comparative cost: 10 500$

Maintain relations with 250 people specialized and interested to your products

It is often recognized that 80% of the leads in commercial trade shows are not followed up.

The talent follow up system provides access to external sales force candidates of 100 millions job seekers categorized. The TFS is a filter connected on the world allowing to contact non solicited candidates who have access to opportunities of requests for proposals.

The annual license fees of the SST costs 39 000$

The management of the SST costs 58 000$

If 5 companies were sharing these 97 000$, it would costs each one of them 19 400$.

In a commercial cluster with Industrial Affiliates share these costs are shared between 20 companies: 3550$Comparative cost: 19 400$

Globally

The OMS and TFS are the foundations of an innovative organization and process reducing costs: they help to perform more sales at lower costs.

Globally, we estimate cost savings over 57 000$.

The following tables summarize costs savings described in details in his article.

Small businesses are ill equiped to manage trade secrets

WHAT IS CONFIDENTIALITY?
Confidentiality is the act of limiting disclosure of private matters; maintaining the trust that an individual has placed in one which has been entrusted with private matters.1

Legally, there are two basic requirements for protection of confidential information, namely 2
(a)The subject matter must be confidential, and
(b)The subject matter must have been communicated in circumstances which impose an obligation of confidence between the disclosing party and the receiving party

Finally, Confidentiality is also the status accorded to data or information indicating that it is sensitive for some reason, and that therefore it needs to be protected against theft or improper use and must be disseminated only to individuals or organizations authorized to have it3.

Secrecy and privacy are often used synonymously with confidentiality.

Is the matter of the transmission confidential?

We can reasonably think that information is confidential if the disclosure4:

Harms an employee's or third party's reputation or safety;
Harms the financial or competitive interests of the corporation;
Violates securities regulations for a public company;
Prejudices finalization of a project or transaction currently in progress or under negotiation;
Prejudices litigation, (e.g. which would breach solicitor/client privilege
Leaks a Trade Secret
Breaches with privacy laws
Etc

What kind of information?

SunCET's confidential e-mail transmission tools should be used everyday to send and receive personal information, trade secrets or to protect copyright.

Personal Information
Most countries in Europe and in America have adopted laws to protect personal information

Trade Secrets
Most developed Countries in the world have adopted laws to protect Trade Secrets. Employees send trade secrets every day in a non-confidential way by e-mail (ex: strategic plans, technical information or R&D information, production or quality control information, marketing, administrative or financial information)

Valuable Copyrighted information
Everyday, creators, designers, authors are submitting their work and need digital and legal protection to reduce illicit copies or to keep the commercial value of their work.

Has it been communicated in circumstances that impose an obligation of confidence between the disclosing party and the receiving party?
Why leaks occur?
Confidentiality breach can occur for a large number of reasons that are not addressed by the technologies proposed on the market.5 If we look closer to the risks of breach of confidentiality in E-mail, encrypted information can easily loose their confidential status because the most important risk of breach of confidentiality in an e-mail transmission comes from the senders and the recipients.

For example, the confidential information is not treated in a confidential way if the
Recipient does not agree to a confidentiality agreement and
Document is not identified as confidential and
Attached files are not encrypted permanently,
Sender does not have the tools and the administrative process to manage the confidential information,
Recipient is not aware of the confidential status of the information
Recipient does not know how to protect the information
If all reasonable circumstances are not imposing an obligation of confidence, the information can legally lose its confidentiality status.

The circumstances that impose obligation of confidence require technological, legal and administrative protections and measures.

In the Internet Technology (IT) world, confidentiality is performed by cryptography along with data integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. Confidentiality that is achieved using cryptography makes use of encryption to render the information unintelligible except by authorized entities. The information may become intelligible again by using decryption.

The dominance of Internet Technologies in the Information security has a perverse effect: because most people hear that IT protects confidentiality, they believe that confidentiality is protected; it is a false assumption. It is wrong to believe that encrypted transmission protects efficiently confidential information.

Using encrypted e-mail do not means that information is disclosed in a confidential way. If all circumstances of the transmission do not impose an obligation of confidence between the disclosing party and the receiving party, then a judge could rule the information as public information.

THE SITUATION ON THE MARKET
It is getting widely known in the public that free non-protected e-mail is not enough to protect the rights of valuable information. Few people know that
The general principles of Information Security clearly state that it cannot be insured without using technical, administrative and legal protections alike.
If confidential information is sent in a non-confidential way, it can legally lose its confidentiality status.

Nevertheless, the general response of the security vendors has been to:
Propose medium and large enterprises, e-mail solutions that comprise encryption and secure socket layers technology to insure security6.
Focus on encryption services
Leave all administrative and legal measures required to protect confidentiality to consulting firms.
Neglect the needs of small enterprises to have access to affordable system offering reasonable circumstances that impose an obligation of confidence.

Small businesses are ill equipped to manage disclosures of trade secrets, personal information and valuable copyrighted information.

Marketing challenges in the new economy

Opening new export market requires a strategy, goals, objectives, market mapping, channel mapping, communication plan, etc. Competition a globalized world requires the most efficient communication plan. Often, small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) tend to use traditional media and distribution channel to address export market in the context of the new economy.

This article highlights some of the problems of the traditional distribuition channel and media for SMEs marketing innovative products, services or solutions. It also shows that the new economy provides the tools to address these problems.

First problem: Costs of inventory or acquisition of knowledge in the long tail
Machinery and equipment manufacturers sometime use distribution structure based on wholesales price, inventory and floor plan agreements made with financial institutions and retailers whereby retailers hold the inventory and incur most of the customer acquisition expenses.

In the traditional supply chain, machinery and equipment manufacturer sells products to the retailer at a fixed unit wholesale price. The retailer holds inventory and sells it to the customers at a fixed unit price. In this model the retailer both takes inventory risk and influences demand by exerting effort. For the retailer, if a product is out of stock, the sale is lost. On the other hand unsold inventory is carried over to the next period incurring holding cost. In this model, the retailer is the sole decision maker who decides on both the stocking quantity and the customer acquisition spending. Therefore the retailer has some power in the chain but he also bears all the inventory-related risk.

This distribution model is not efficient for innovative products, services and solutions specialty machinery and equipment manufacturers.

When inventory or knowledge acquisition costs are low, it may be profitable to sell specialized products, services or solutions. But when these costs are high, retailers focus on popular products letting aside specialized products.

Small retailers, they are generally not organized to implement regional promotion plans generating enough sales of specialty machinery and equipment. The lack of sales at the end of the year often proves the inefficiencies of the traditional distribution model for the specialty machinery and equipment.

As for the large retailers able to capture a major part of the supply chain profits they are usually not interested to carry inventory of specialty machinery and equipment and yet demand high profit margins. Large retailers who can reach large markets and territories are generally not interested to take the inventory or the knowledge acquisition costs and are asking for large margins reducing dramatically the benefits for the supplier.

And so, sales intermediaries are generally looking for 20% of products bringing 80% (1) of sales (see green section on the long tail graph) on small geographical markets, while specialty products, service or solution providers targets clients base located on large territories(see yellow section on the long tail graph).



The traditional supply chain is therefore not efficient for the distribution on 80% of the products representing only 20% of the sales on large territories but on a world market the sales for this 20% (the long tail) can be huge. Entrepreneurs and inventors often see the potential for their products, services and solutions on world markets but often use medias traditionally used to market the 20% of the popular products.

Second Problem: inefficiency of cold calls
In front of the difficulty to find a distributor for a specialty product, suppliers will assign technical sales representatives to make cold calls and participate to trade shows.
Ratios are different for each business and sales representative prospecting new clients but, let's just take the example of prospecting new clients for a specialty equipment of 50 000$.
In this scenario our technical sales rep. costs 30$/hours and works 35 hours a week (annual salary and benefits of 51 450$ and 1715 hours within 49 weeks per year).

In this scenario, technical sales rep would spend his 1715 hours as follow:

• Sales prospection on new markets: 20 hours
• Follow up with clients and quotations: 274 hours
• Business visits : 252 hours
• Trades shows: 100 hours
• Preparation of quotations: 60 hours
• Administration: 49 hours

On a weekly base, in average, it would mean approximately:

• Prospecting new markets: 20 hours
• Follow up with clients and quotations: 5,6 hours
• Business visits : 5.18 hours
• Trades shows: 2 hours
• Preparation of quotations: 1,22 hours
• Administration: 1 hour

As for the results our technical sales rep would typically spend 20 hours to search, get 6 prospects per week; 294 prospects in 49 weeks

From these 294 prospects, 72 (25% )will typically generate visits. From these visits, 15 (20%) will typically be interested to buy and will ask for a quotation in the short term.

In our example, 15 requests for quotation cost 32 400$ for prospecting and trade shows (980 hrs + 100hrs x 30$)

If the business has an historical conversion rate of request for quotation into sales of 30%, this will mean 5 contracts of 50 000 on new markets.

If directs costs (direct material and labor) for these equipments are 50%, the contribution to the fixed costs and profits will be 125 000$

Usually the sales director will have hire expectations of returns on investment for the company.

Third: Problems with trade shows
While large companies are going in average to 25 trades shows per year in the United States in order to get the effective frequency for branding strategy.(2) As trade shows are in fact traditional media requiring at least 4 exposures to have an impact on the audience on new markets.

Studies also show that between 70% and 80% of the leads in a trade show are not followed up.
The efficiency of trade shows are questionable for small businesses going to trade shows once in a while in various markets and especially for SMEs contracting out the their trade show campaign.

The trashow industry is in crisis (See: www.meetingindustrycrisiscenter.org/ ). It is also adapting to the realities of the new economy. (See: www.mpiweb.org/CMS/uploadedFiles/Research_and_Whitepapers/FutureWatch2009.pdf )

SMEs with innovative products need to consider trade shows as one aspect of the comunication plan on new market but not necessarily as the center piece of the export plan.

Third problem: Marketing resources for SMEs
In front of the inefficiencies of traditional supply chain, technical sales representative cold calls and trades shows for SMEs involved in new markets, SMEs will have generally do not have the resources to employ a full time marketing and sales manager able to compensate for these inefficiencies on new markets.

They do not have resources for:

• Push promotion plans reaching out to salary paid sales force;
• Pull promotion plans reaching out to large geographical territories;
• Advertising in traditional media to build their brand year after year in new markets.
  New marketing solutions are then required for the marketing of specialty products on a business to business export markets.

Solution: take the benefits of the new economy
Small and medium size businesses are facing challenges in the context of the new economy. One might see the new economy as a source of problems or as the source of solutions. The last point of view is the best. We need to understand the trends and adapt our marketing strategies accordingly.

• The new economy is a knowledge economy: in a knowledge economy, knowledge is a product, in knowledge-based economy, knowledge is a tool;
• The new economy is a digital economy: because of the changing usage patterns of Internet technologies, the cost of transactions has dropped so significantly a firm will tend to expand through outsourcing until the cost of carrying out an extra transaction on the open market become equal to the costs of organizing the same transaction within the firm;
• Virtualization: it started 50 years ago. These technologies give the capacity to manage resources starting from a central point and to share resources for better use. Virtualization generates major competitive advantages. In he past 10 years, virtualization technologies progressed a lot to interconnect;
• Molecularization: Large organizations are becoming fragmented into dynamic clusters of individuals.Inter networking: The most notable example of inter networking is the Internet ;
• Disintermediation: lower transportation costs, central warehousing, ERP, drop ship strategies and call centres facilitate direct sales from producers to users;
• Innovation: the conversion conversion of new ideas into benefits, whether social or economic, becomes the driver of the economy;
• Prosumption: firms using collaboration tools to filter content organize themselves to perform through the performance of a large number of individuals and develop opportunities worldwide;
• Immediacy Companies can no longer afford to concentrate on developing the domestic market first and then seek out foreign markets. The rapid technological diffusion now makes it unlikely that a company can rely on a technological competitive advantages for long.
• Globalization: integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, and the spread of technology ;
• Convergence: Refers to the evolution of previously distinguishable digitalized information formats, services, applications, networks, and business models in ways that reduce or blend the distinctions. Convergence is driven by the rapid development of digital technology.

The new economy provides the capacity to:

• Reduce the costs of inventory or the cost of the acquisition of expertise on large geographical markets;
• Implement pull and push promotions on global markets compensating for the inefficiency of traditional distribution networks and traditional medias;
• Outsource the quest for request for quotations on new markets than to manage the business development (cold calling) and traditional media (trade shows, magazine) costs entirely inside the firm.

Industrial Affiliates:

• Networks manufacturers to professionals sending opportunities of requests for proposals on export markets
• Follows up and reports sales process to stakeholders.

New business opportunities are found efficiently through networks of highly specialized professionals located in several states.
Manufacturers and their distributors receive opportunities of requests for proposals and take care of the sales process. They acquire new customers they could hardly reach otherwise and pay affiliates only when sales or qualifying actions are completed. The break even of these external sales networks is often reached within two to four sales.
References
1Given a large enough availability of choice, a large population of customers, and negligible stocking and distribution costs, the selection and buying pattern of the population results in a power law distribution curve, or Pareto distribution. This suggests that a market with a high freedom of choice will create a certain degree of inequality by favoring the upper 20% of the items ("hits" or "head") against the other 80% ("non-hits" or "long tail"). This is known as the Pareto principle or 80–20 rule. The Long Tail concept has found a broad ground for application, research and experimentation. It is a common term in online business and the mass media, but also of importance in micro-finance (Grameen Bank, for example), user-driven innovation (Eric von Hippel), social network mechanisms (e.g., crowd sourcing, crowd casting, Peer-to-peer), economic models, and marketing (viral marketing). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail
2 The concept of effective frequency is simple: Too much advertising repetition leads to overkill and waste; too little and no results. http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/5899.asp
3 http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-You-Have-to-Urgently-Follow-Up-Your-Trade-Show-Leads&id=2026221
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_economies
5 Wikinomics : How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, Don Tapscott, Anthony D William, 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikinomics
6 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3265/is_n3_v33/ai_n28631973/?tag=content;col1
7 http://www.iccwbo.org/uploadedFiles/Digital_convergence.pdf

Preparing a channel marketing plan

Affiliate marketing allows to engage commercial agents sending opportunities of requests for proposals to manufacturers, distributors or solution and service providers who take care of the sales process and the closing of the sale. Affiliates gets paid only against a qualifying action or a sale.

Industrial Affiliates provides affiliate marketing services on Canadian and US markets.

Affiliate marketing is part of the distribution channels. This seminar targets small and medium size entrepreneurs. This seminar can help to prepare a new distribution strategy.

This seminar includes the following topics:

• Establish an executive team to initiate the strategic process
• Market mapping
• Define Goals and Objectives
• Categorization of channels
• Channel Mapping
• Establish the foundation of the Marketing Channels
• Implement closed-loop system of communication
• Establish a communication plan

• 
  

  Communication with to stakeholders in the channel map

  
  

  Issue identification

  
  

  Knowledge processes

  
  

• Channel marketing
• Governance with Industrial Affiliates

Channel Management

Drive revenue

Metrics

Affiliate marketing is based on the basic rules of distribution of product and services: the key to success is to generate Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action (AIDA) to potential buyers of innovative products and services.

Affiliates do not create demand; they respond to the demand. This is why we need to clearly define the channel marketing strategy leading affiliates to send opportunities of requests for proposals.

For information

Tel: 450-689-6688
Toll Free: 1-877-789-6688
Email: info@industrialaffiliates.net

Engineering and natural science managers in the USA

Engineering and natural science managers represent a good potential of affiliation for companies providing environmental technologies. Here is a description of this employment category in the United States. As the median salary is around 100 000$, exporter can gage their performance based commission so they can represent a significant incentive for affiliation.

According to the United States bureau of Labor and Statistics,
http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos009.htm

Employment
Engineering and natural sciences managers held about 228,000 jobs in 2006. Manufacturing industries employed 38 percent of engineering and natural sciences managers. Manufacturing industries with the largest employment are those which produce computer and electronic equipment and those which produce transportation equipment, including aerospace products and parts. Another 31 percent worked in professional, scientific, and technical services industries, primarily for firms providing architectural, engineering, and related services and firms providing scientific research and development services. Other large employers include Federal, State, and local government agencies.

...

Earnings

Earnings for engineering and natural sciences managers vary by specialty and by level of responsibility. Median annual earnings of wage and salary engineering managers were $105,430 in May 2006. The middle 50 percent earned between $84,090 and $130,170. Median annual earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of engineering managers were:

Semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing $120,740
Federal executive branch 116,140
Navigational, measuring, electro medical, and control instruments manufacturing 115,150
Aerospace product and parts manufacturing 111,020
Engineering services 103,570

Median annual earnings of wage and salary natural sciences managers were $100,080 in May 2006. The middle 50 percent earned between $77,320 and $130,900. Median annual earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of natural sciences managers were:

Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences $120,780
Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing 111,070
Federal executive branch 96,100
Architectural, engineering, and related services 88,990
State government 65,570

In addition, engineering and natural sciences managers, especially those at higher levels, often receive more benefits—such as expense accounts, stock option plans, and bonuses—than do non managerial workers in their organizations
...

Nature of the Work

Engineering and natural sciences managers plan, coordinate, and direct research, design, and production activities. They may supervise engineers, scientists, and technicians, along with support personnel. These managers use their knowledge of engineering and natural sciences to oversee a variety of activities...

To perform effectively, these managers also must apply knowledge of administrative
procedures, such as budgeting, hiring, and supervision. ...

In addition, these managers use communication skills extensively. They spend a great deal of time coordinating the activities of their unit with those of other units or
organizations. They confer with higher levels of management; with financial,
production, marketing, and other managers; and with contractors and equipment
and materials suppliers.

Engineering managers may supervise people who design and develop machinery, products, systems, and processes. They might also direct and coordinate production, operations, quality assurance, testing, or maintenance in industrial plants. Many are plant engineers, who direct and coordinate the design, installation, operation, and maintenance of equipment and machinery in industrial plants. Others manage research and development teams that produce new products and processes or improve existing ones.

Natural sciences managers oversee the work of life and physical scientists, including
agricultural scientists, chemists, biologists, geologists, medical scientists, and physicists. These managers direct research and development projects and coordinate activities such as testing, quality control, and production. They may work on basic research projects or on commercial activities. Science managers sometimes conduct their own research in addition to managing the work of others.

...

Announcing phase 1 of the affiliate program

Pierre Dumas, president of Industrial Affiliates is pleased to announce the launch of Industrial Affiliates systems.

Phase 1 is the time to sign up General Agreements with manufacturing companies as well as to provide affordable marketing consultation services to recruit affiliates.

Planned for May 2009, phase 2 of the affiliate program will advertise technologies on the WEB as well as to implement an opportunity follow up system.

About Industrial Affiliates

Industrial Affiliates helps manufacturers to receive opportunities of requests for proposals from external sales force located on export markets. These services complements the sales efforts from manufacturers and their distributors. When an affiliate sends an opportunity of requests for proposal, manufacturer's sales manager takes control of the sales process. Manufacturer also controls at which stage of the sale process affiliates will get performance based commissions.

General Agreement

In the General Agreement, manufacturers and affiliates are required to subscribe to the guideline of OECD to multinational enterprises. They must also subscribe to the policies and practices of Industrial Affiliates network which are disclosed time to time by email and on Industrial Affiliates WEB site.

The General Agreement defines each party's role. Time to time, Manufacturers proceed to engagements with Industrial Affiliates and/or with affiliates.

Industrial Affiliates, manufacturers and affiliates are independent contractors and have no authority to obligate or bind the other in any respect except for the clause of this agreement.

Each party owns and shall retain all right, title and interest in its names, logos, trademarks, service marks, trade dress, copyrights and proprietary technology, including, without limitation, those names, logos, trademarks, service marks, trade dress, copyrights and proprietary technology currently used or which may be developed and/or used by it in the future.

Industrial Affiliates and/or affiliates do not have rights or responsibilities to deliver the product or service intended between manufacturer and its customers.

In no event shall either party be liable to the other party for any direct, indirect, special, exemplary, consequential or incidental damages, even if informed of the possibility of such damages.

Industrial Affiliates is not responsible for the fulfillment of engagements between manufacturers and affiliates.

The annual cost of the general agreement is 840$

Industrial Affiliates' role in the general agreement

Industrial Affiliates remains a third party who do not have rights and/or responsibility to deliver product and services intended in the transactions between Manufacturer and future Customers.

Industrial Affiliates

• Develops and maintains networks of affiliates;
• Develops the system composed of business relationships, agreements, web sites, advertising, lead reservation and sales process reporting system helping manufacturers to generate sales through Affiliates disclosing opportunities of requests for proposals;
• Proposes clusters reducing marketing costs to manufacturers
• Reserves the right to exclude from the system, any member who do not respects the guidelines of OECD or the policies and practices of the networks.

Manufacturer' roles in the general agreement

Manufacturer

• Holds the sole right and responsibility to

1. Determine in the product and service offered under his name in the system
2. Convert Affiliates sales leads into Request for Quotation (RFQ)
3. Convert RFQ into sales;

• Advertises accurate information such as description, prices, up to date pictures and texts in the System ;
• Promptly updates the system if and when the products and services are not available;
• Is responsible to deliver product and services posted in the system according to the terms agreed with customers;
• Can change, suspend or discontinue any aspect of an offer in the system with 24 hours prior notice ;
• Warrants that sales leads assigned for a product would be followed through the system would report or update information in the system the same working day including but not limited to:

1. Business opportunities reception receipt
2. RFQ date;
3. RFQ Commission payment date;
4. Amount of Commission for RFQ;
5. Sales Contract date;
6. Customer Purchase Order number ;
7. Purchase Order Sale amount ;
8. Payment Date of Sales Commission;
9. Sales Commission Amount ;
10. Machine/Equipment Delivery date;
11. Payment date;
12. Sales Commission date;
13. Final Payment Date

• Insures that products and services are conforming to all applicable laws and regulations;
• Maintains proper liability insurance coverage or the product and services covering Industrial Affiliates his employees, affiliates, suppliers, board members are covered in the liability insurance;
• Pays commissions within seven (7) days of the occurrence of the material facts defined in the Engagement (ex: date of RFQ or Delivery Date)

Termination of General Agreement and engagements

Either party can the General Agreement at any time, for any reason, provided that they provide at least seven days prior written notice of such termination to the other party.

The termination of the General Agreement would also terminate any outstanding Engagements.
However, all rights to payment, causes of action and any provisions which by their terms are intended to survive termination, would survive the termination of the Agreement.

Termination of an Engagement would not terminate the Agreement.

Engagement for consultation services

Engagements with consultants are optional and in addition to the General Agreement.

Manufacturers can engage marketing consultants to help prepare their sales plan. Service rates are agreed between parties prior to work.

Consultants engaged by manufacturers must subscribe to the OECD Guidelines, as well as to the network policies and practices disclosed and updated time to time on Industrial Affiliates WEB site.

Consultation services related to the affiliate networks generally include

• Marketing Services ;
• Sales Management Services ;
• Digital Information Management Services;
• Communication Services;
• Pre selection of affiliates.
  

Industrial Affialiates service rates are available on Industrial Affiliates WEB page « Begin »

Engagement for the use of the system

This engagement is supplemental to the General Agreement and will be implemented in phase 2.

It enables the parties to share fixed marketing costs between several manufacturers.

Industrial Affiliates

• Provides first line services to affiliates;
• Provides pre selection and affiliate selection systems;
• Provides WEB site displaying technologies and providing opportunity reservation system;
• Collect engagements taken between manufacturers and all affiliates recruited;
• Collects and reports information related to

1. Affiliates ;
2. Product and services offered by manufacturers looking for opportunities of request for proposals;
3. Material facts related to the sales process and commission sales process.

Service fees for the use of the system will be posted on Industrial Affiliates WEB site and can be changed at any time with 7 days prior notice.

Parties can terminate this engagement at any time without reasons with 7 days prior notice.

Industrial Affiliates innovates

Innovation is the conversion of new ideas into benefits. Phase 1 and Phase 2 are converting technologies of the new economy to increase networking and sales on export markets.

Millions of citizens are using social networks to interact. Industrial Affiliates is only adjusting business processes with WEB centric technologies that became pppular in the past five years to optimize the opportunities of requests for proposals.

Phase 1 is very affordable allowing manufactureres to start their affiliate networks

Helping economic development organizations to create jobs

The success of organization holds in large part to human resources

Industrial Affiliates helps regional economic partners to integrate a world class career center into their WEB site, taking care of employment needs in the region as well as recruiting external sales force for local businesses on export markets.

More sales, more jobs, more prosperity in the region

Regional Career WEB site
Regions can now implement a career WEB site that totally integrates to their WEB site with harmony. Career WEB sites can help businesses in region to benefit from professional recruiting tools . This gives job seekers access to professional search-and-apply tools from within the region economic development’s website — an enhancement that generates higher completion rates and better overall candidates for your open positions.


Better functionality
The system provides industry leading functionality to make sure regional career site is optimized for businesses. All job details are kept in one, easy-to manage location, which helps recruiters and hiring managers save time and increase productivity. Then, as candidates apply, their resumes become part of the regional career proprietary database, so they can be contacted in the future. The system also allows to search for passive candidates and forward their resumes to hiring managers in just one click.

Supporting Businesses on international markets
Industrial Affiliates Unique services brings remarkable benefits:
Increase sales through external sales force on export markets
Increased capacity to attract technical and scientific job seekers
Increased sales on export market en more employment

Main Benefits
Give job seekers professional search-and-apply tools in the regional careers website;
Manage all online candidates in one central location;
A hosted career site and a private resume database;
Allows to leverage world class technology and expertise to reap the maximum benefit.

This solution

• Provides a powerful way to recruit candidates;
• Promotes the region's brand image and awareness;
• Conforms to information privacy laws in Canada.
  

Conference held at REPEX was a success on March 30th.

The conference was held at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada in Montreal. The conference was also WEBcasted.

The conference was titled: How to start an export cluster composed of small businesses.

The main topics of the conference were:

• The growth of social networks in 2009;
• How to position the export cluster in the extended enterprise;
• Benefits of affiliate marketing for manufacturers on export markets;
• Benefits of starting a cluster for a business association;
• Partnership program which auto-finance the implementation of the portal;
• Benefits for the export consultant ;
• Benefits of export clusters on the economy.

The conference showed that the monetization of social networking entered a growth phase in the business world in 2009.

It showed the impressive opportunity that we have to access 70 millions resumes and world class affiliate selection systems as the foundations of our business.

Institutions VS Collaboration from Clay Shirky

Ted Conferences : “Institutions VS Collaboration”.

In this prescient 2005 talk, Clay Shirky shows how closed groups and companies will give way to looser networks where small contributors have big roles and fluid cooperation replaces rigid planning.

Using affiliate marketing in the Environmental Industry

The Environmental Industry is booming. I went to the trade show of Americana in Montreal last week. I met several companies and organizations interested to network with specialists to export innovative technologies in the United States.

Some of the environmental companies are using the Voluntary Carbon Market as a commercial tool to finance environmental projects. Other groups are building communities on the Internet to identify local environmental issues.

In the past four months, I have met two world class Internet Technology companies and raised their interest to provide their technologies to service affiliate networks on export markets.

I am now looking for third parties interested to venture with us to to link environmental technology companies with social groups and individuals sending opportunities of request for proposals in exchange of sales commissions.

The project will be funded by environmental companies paying 1000$/month to access affiliate networks providing opportunities of request for proposal.

The break even and benefits of this opportunity can be seen on our "partnership" WEB page. . The investment required for the assembly and implementation of the technologies is minimal compared to the huge economic and societal benefits of the implementation that would trigger such affiliate marketing program. 20 companies subscribing to this service will generate 240 000$ to the venture. Therefore, the software licenses would be implemented and paid for through performance: we do not have to buy expensive licenses upfront.

For more information, Email to info@industrialaffiliates.net

______________________________

You will find here bellow some of my notes about

1. Affiliate Marketing
2. A partial and quick list of facts and stakeholders in the Environmental Industry

1. Using Affiliate Marketing in the Environmental Industry

Affiliate Marketing allows registered affiliates to reserve opportunities of requests for proposals and to credit their organization in exchange of sales commissions. Once prospects are sent away to manufacturers or solution providers, the technical sales representatives leads the sales process up to the contract and purchase. Manufacturers and solution providers acquire new customers and pay affiliates only when a sale or other qualifying action is completed.

The Affiliate Marketing process is designed to increase sales:
1. Diagnostic and Market mapping
2. Define goals and objectives
3. Implement stakeholders management and map channels
4. Establish communication plan
5. Implement telecommunications
6. Governance and channel management

Some companies are able to finance the implementation of their technologies by themselves at their client's site, taking into account the ROI provided by the carbon voluntary markets. The voluntary carbon market can certainly reduce the costs of remediation to environmental problems.

It is possible to use affiliate marketing technologies to network environmental companies with affiliates submitting opportunities of requests for proposals to re mediate to environmental problems.

2. Quick and partial map of the stakeholders on the environmental markets.

The facts and figures presented in this article can be seen as key elements of the Diagnostic and Market mapping of the Affiliate marketing plan.

In the United States
"The US environmental industry has had a long-standing tradition of developing cutting edge technologies and has hence grown into a major industrial sector in the U.S. According to Environmental Business International, Inc. (EBI) San Diego, CA), in 2001 the U.S. environmental industry represented total revenues of $214 billion and exports of $22.4 billion generated by almost 35,000 private sector companies and about 87,000 public sector entities. It has recently been recognized as a valuable and vital part of the economy, responsible for more than 2% of GNP and employment of nearly 1.6 million people in the United States in 2002. It is no surprise that the U.S. is one of the leading exporters and importers of environmental technologies in the world." www.benchmarkemail.com/newsletters/parlezusa/us_environment.htm

In Canada
There would be over 6 600 private companies directly involved in environmental products and services in Canada.

There would be a total of 105 00 establishments (private and public) who have at least one employee involved in environmental tasks.

The environmental industry would have a total of 503 000 jobs in Canada.

Quebec
In the Province of Quebec, there is 1600 businesses and more than 34 000 jobs related to green technologies and environmental companies with an average growth of 41.4% in the past 5 years.
Investments in this field past from 16,8 M$ in 2006 to 59,4 M$ in 2007. www.mdeie.gouv.qc.ca/index.php?id=84&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=1494&tx_ttnews[currentCatUid]=68&tx_ttnews[backPid]=4563&no_cache=1

Ontario
2,467 environmental companies employs more than 62 000 jobs are related to Environment www.2ontario.com/industry/environment.asp

Alberta
Almost 1,330 companies, employing 26,000 Albertans and generating more than $3.5 billion in revenues. www.albertacanada.com/industries/1160.html

British Columbia
Over 1,300 companies with revenues close to $2 billion. The main components of the sector are environmental construction, recycling, and solid and hazardous waste management, consulting services, water and waste water goods and services, renewable energy, air pollution and noise control, analytical services, and green building and sustainable urban planning. www.bceia.com/documents/overview_on_BCs_environment_industry.pdf

State of the Voluntary Carbon Market
Market studies are showing that the Voluntary Carbon Market had had a growth of 165% in 2007 and was valued US$258m. The same market analysis says that The voluntary carbon markets can be broken down into two categories: the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and the “OvertheCounter” (OTC) market. The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) beeing the world’s only voluntary capandtrade system.

The Katomba Group published "Forging a Frontier, The State of the Voluntary Carbon Market 2008"

Here some interesting information about the members of the environmental industry and the voluntary carbon market:

• Anticipation of regulation is often cited as another major force behind the voluntary markets but that it is currently difficult to separate purely voluntary buys from precompliance buys;
• The vast majority of credit buyers in the 2007 voluntary markets were private businesses (79%). Approximately two thirds of their credits were purchased to immediately offset emissions, with the remaining third bought for investment purposes;
• NGOs comprised 13% of the buyers, individuals 5%, and governmental entities less than 1%.
  In 2007, buyers from the EU represented the greatest share of demand (47%) for credits on the voluntary markets. North American buyers purchased 37% of credits. Demand for credits by customers in Asia, Latin America, and Africa remains low;
• Like last year, corporate responsibility and public relations/branding efforts remained the main purchasing motivations of buyers in the voluntary markets in 2007. Two thirds of customers purchasing offsets in 2007 did so to offset institutional emissions;
• “Additionally” the demonstrable ability to reduce emissions beyond the levels that would otherwise have occurred – remained the primary criteria for selecting an offset provider in 2007;
• Environmental and social co benefits were also ranked highly as a motivation to buy credit.

The North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation

The North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) include procedures allowing non-governmental organization or person residing or established in the territory of a participating country, to make submissions that a party to the NAAEC is failing to effectively enforce its environmental law.” The CEC has published “Guidelines for Submissions on Enforcement Matters” explaining these procedures.

Stakeholders listed at the Chicago Climate Exchange WEB site

The Chicago Climate Exchange describes itself as "the world's first and North America’s only active voluntary, legally binding integrated trading system to reduce emissions of all six major greenhouse gases, with offset projects worldwide there is over 400 organizations listed in 47 categories on the Chicago Climate Exchange WEB site.