Business Partnership Development Mission for the IT sector is a sector-specific export mission to the UK linked to the Internet World international trade show.

The main objective of this business event is to promote development of long term business relationships with EU companies.

The specific objectives of the Mission are to:

• Present and promote the Project participants and their products / services to potential business partners from abroad, in particular from the UK;
• Provide SMEs with an opportunity to exchange business experience with foreign companies;
• Exploit opportunities to become a Value Added Reseller (VAR) in Ukraine;
• Exploit opportunities to use & become involved in Open Source products;
• Build relationship as an outsourced provider to UK company – how might this progress? Preparation to increase chances of success;
• Technology and product awareness: what is new? What are differences? How does the company offerings compare?;
• Cultural awareness: observe Western approach of doing business.

Participants: the Mission is addressed to managers of IT SMEs participating in the project – maximum 10 participants. The Mission participants are expected to possess good spoken English language skills.

Destination: UK, London

Duration: 4 days, 27 April – 30 April 2009

The Mission is combined with the participation in the Internet World trade show. The Internet World is Europe’s longest running, best attended and biggest event for digital marketing and online business, attracting over 13,000 visitors and more than 300 exhibitors. It is the only event that helps IT companies to formulate and implement their online strategies, from digital marketing to ecommerce, content management to hosting. It showcases the UK’s leading suppliers and delivers Europe’s best free education program.

In recent years the Internet World has grown to become more than just a trade exhibition. It has expanded to include a number of different channels all dedicated to educating end users and providing a forum to bring buyers and sellers together.

Participation in the Internet World will let the Mission participants to:

• Meet face to face with leading IT and companies and discuss co-operation opportunities,
• Learn from more than 200 free seminars delivered by well-known industry professionals,
• Ensure the company’s online strategy is robust,
• Network with peers,
• Observe the industry developments (innovations and new technologies for resource efficiency).

Apart from visiting the Internet World, the Mission programme will include business meetings with business organisations based in UK which can support the Mission participants in entering the EU market as well as with the UK companies, which can be potential business partners.

The selection of the EU market is justified by the results of the EU market survey aimed at identification of market opportunities and niches for the Ukrainian companies, which was conducted by the Project at an earlier stage of the Project implementation. According to this EU 4 market survey, the UK is the largest EU-market for IT services, amounting to Ђ31 billion (2006) and also second, after Germany, EU-market for software, amounting to Ђ 8.6 billion in the system software segment and to Ђ 7 billion in the application software segment (2006). The UK also spends a large part of its IT-budget on offshoring / nearshoring. Outsourcing has been identified as one of the best opportunities for IT Ukrainian sector. Despite the global economic slowdown, it is expected that the UK will account for three quarters of all European outsourcing in the next five years.

Expected results for the Mission participants:

• Better understanding of the latest developments of European IT industry as a result of observations and business discussions with exhibitors, visitors, seminar attendees at the Internet World ;
• Increased opportunities of the project participants to build business relationships with foreign partners as a result of direct contacts established during the Internet World and business contacts organised by the Project Team.