“Before taking a step outside of Spain, we recommend seeing what information we have available to better target those first steps”

Interview with Kike Fernández, head of International Business at Iberinform

Spanish companies have many tools at their disposal to begin their internationalization, such as Export Insight and Insight View, developed by Iberinform.

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Your International Business Manager, Kike Fernández, teaches us in this interview how to sell products or services outside of Spain in 2 steps.

 

Before going into detail, I would like to ask a more generic question about the importance of having first-hand, accurate and complete information today when doing international business. It is essential, right?

 

Kike Fernandez: “Yes, what we recommend to all the companies that approach us is that before taking a step outside of Spain, investing time and financial resources in a prospecting trip, that we dedicate time in the office, what is called the desk research, for see what information we have available to better target those first steps. We live in a time in which we have a large amount of information available but the important thing is to know what information is going to really help us and to be able to separate what is useful, powerful information from what is not.

 

We start with step 1 to activate a company in international markets. How can a Spanish company discover what, with whom, and where to export and import around the world? 

 

KF: “To respond to this need a year and a half ago we began to develop with our partners a tool that we have called ExportInsight. Within the three levels of access that we have (a free one without even registering, a freemium and the paid pro level), we can do some very interesting analyzes of where our products are being sold; see what export markets we can find and not only export, but also suppliers. This tool is focused on the internationalization of the value chain of companies, both new suppliers and new markets.

 

This tool has more than 200 customs areas available to search, more than 8 million exporting companies And what is very interesting is that it is not just a list, we go further and have done data analysis work, it is a big data and commercial intelligence tool. Have data from 900 million commercial transactions. Depending on the market, we can give interesting details such as which shipping company has taken the product there, what the units of measurement are, kilos, boxes, bottles, and we can even get to the unit price of each product. “We can give our clients the ability to see how to bring their products to a specific market.”

 

Can customers see which market may be most interesting to them or what your competitor is doing?

 

KF: “Completely. Not just look at what the market in general is doing. In the end, there are not many exporting companies and they know each other but they do not have these details. You can track what your competition is selling not only in your markets but in new markets that your competition may know about and you don't.”

 

And now we address Step 2. Iberinform offers another tool, Insight View, with which the company can analyze the financial status of foreign companies that it has found thanks to Export Insight that it is interested in doing business with. Is that so? How does it work? 

 

KF: “What we give Insight View is the ability to our clients to see if that company that is importing its products to a market is going to be able to meet its payment commitments. Not only knowing what a company is doing but also the payment capacity and exposure to payment. 

 

Inside Insight View We have access to 72 countries online, which are approximately 90% of Spanish exports, we provide very broad coverage, and within those countries we can search for the report of our local importer, do all the financial analysis we want, based on the scores, on the credit limits that we set by default for those companies. With which we will have a very clear idea of ​​where we should export but we can also prioritize which companies we can target.

 

For a series of We can monitor 11 countries daily in changes in the information of these companies. “In this way we can identify risks that arise.” 

 

For which company departments can this information be useful?

 

KF: “The focus we have at Insight View is dedicated to three areas: one is the commercial area, know the contact details and a not-so-deep approach to financial health, with the score and credit limit; he financial department because we provide these financial statements so that this department can carry out deeper analyzes of the indicators it wants; and finally, the marketing area, because there is a module that allows you to segment and search for new prospects in 11 countries but with the ability to segment not only by the typical characteristics of the segmentations, but we also give the possibility of segmenting by the risk score that we give to the companies". 

 

Does Insight View allow you to contact these potential clients directly?

 

KF: "Not for the moment. It is one of the steps that we may have to take, converting Insight View into a communications hub between companies, but the communication part is decided by the company. What we do is give all the selection and choice tools to a client so that he sees who to contact first". 

 

Finally, how can a Spanish company access these two services that you offer from Iberinform?

 

KF: “I invite all companies to visit our website, www.iberinform.es, and there they have all the information about the company's products and services. And there you will find our contact information. A direct contact telephone number for our telebusiness colleagues and the offices we have spread across the peninsula.”

 

Are there different hiring models?

 

KF: “This is a good question because it seems that since they are such advanced and technological solutions, they are only available to large companies; But our client portfolio has characteristics that cover the entire business spectrum. From self-employed workers with a more limited activity to companies listed on the Ibex 35, large multinationals, international companies, and in between any type of company.”