On 21-28 November, the International Trade Centre (ITC) will conduct a series of practical workshops on e-commerce engineering, e-billing and leads management, in partnership with AzExport as part of the ‘Ready to Trade’ project funded by the European Union in the framework of the EU4Business initiative.
The project aims to improve the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from Azerbaijan and other Eastern Partnership countries, and help them access new markets with a particular focus on the European Union.
One of the project’s objectives is to build the capacities of SMEs on how to use digital solutions and technologies to facilitate cross-border trade through digital channels.
The workshop on e-billing and leads management will be held on 21-23 November. During the first day of the workshop, trainers from different institutions (AzExport, State Agro Trade Company and local consulting firms) will learn about e-billing automation and about efficient ways to handle quotes, invoices and payment collections. Participants will experience hands-on the tools and rules concerning leads management. They will learn how to best convert an inquiry into a sale by organising systematised multi-channel follow-ups. This workshop will focus on the critical shift from email threads to support tickets and on how to link a communication to a billing activity using an open source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and e-billing system. Subsequently, the trainers will apply their knowledge and for two days teach a group of selected SMEs.
The workshop on e-commerce engineering will be held on 26-28 November in the same format as the former workshop, training the trainers first and then training an initial group of selected SMEs.
During the workshop, the participants will learn how to study and design a commercial offer to be listed on a specific marketplace and for a specific target. Such type of engineered offering enhances competitiveness and allows better sales conversions as it offers contextualized logistics, pricing and content that can be easily accepted by the buyer. With the assistance of an ITC export logistics expert, the participants will learn about the importance of understanding and studying the impact of logistics (shipping & returns) and taxes (direct & indirect) in order to be able to define a logistics strategy and set an appropriate price at a given incoterm. Beside the pricing strategy, the trainers and SMEs will learn about quick benchmarking techniques to allow Azeri companies to find competitive edges in terms of product differentiation and to gain visibility in competitive marketplaces.
The Azeri institutions that co-organise the training course will continue this activity with the trainers and organise further sessions to cover a larger number of Azeri SMEs in the following months.
Date
21-28/11/18