The UK in Poland – Where’s the Business Opportunity and more to the point where are we?

Today is a Great day – it marks a week long British Week in Poland to mark the 20th Anniversary Year of the British Polish Chamber of Commerce which culminates in The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebration on the 4th June. Shortly after Poland and the UK embark on two global sporting spectacles – UEFA Euro 2012 and the London Olympiad. For the moment back to business – where is the opportunity? I’ve got 3 ideas.

First of all let’s take a look at what can be done in Poland. So far, in the main, British business in Poland has been characterised by big corporate coming in and seizing local market opportunity. Small business is notably absent despite Poland being the large single market opportunity in Emerging Europe. UK business represents a mere 5% of Poland’s total import picture. We lag way behind our European competitors. The challenge here is two fold. First we need to get our innovative manufacturing companies exporting. A secondary advantage of doing this will come out of the companies’ supply chains. Supply chain sourcing in Poland can create an excellent export support mechanism at the same time as driving efficiencies in the company’s P&L.

Next on the agenda is to turbo charge British service companies into exporting more. With Poland’s large scale modernisation going on there are superb opportunities for UK service companies to engage. Energy, transport and healthcare are all metamorphosing into examples of modern infrastructure. Here we can engage in many projects from design to project management to quality and process systems. We are also pretty good at operations management. Expect this to mushroom in the years to come.

My last idea for today takes a look at Polish external investment. This is an interesting challenge. I also think it’s the next big wave in Polish growth. So far external investment has focused on EU and East – more East with about 20 companies expanding operations abroad. There has been very limited activity going West. Consider for a moment that the UK is Poland’s second largest global trading partner. The UK is Europe’s biggest FDI destination and an excellent global springboard. We also offer access to export markets where Poland is not historically strong. Time for Poland to expand trade and investment in the UK.

Three Great opportunities and a Great British business week ahead!