Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 11, 1991 TAG: 9104110209
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
General Electric's Drive Systems division, based in Salem, looks for partners to help cope with problems at foreign sites and win business in other countries, said Robert Davidson.
He spoke Wednesday to International Trade Association of Western Virginia, saying his company has trouble penetrating European markets that are controlled by large corporations.
It took GE nine months of negotiations with a small electric company in Spain before agreeing on supply, price and training, Davidson said. But within a year, the partnership that GE formed with a European company got its first order in the paper industry.
"We needed a local presence," he said.
Davidson said he was 80 percent certain GE could not have captured the contract without local help. He called it "a very positive working relationship."
Davidson had just returned from a trip to Canada where he's trying to locate a Quebec partner before bidding on a metal processing contract.
GE, whose Salem plant is a half-billion-dollar annual operation, has 22 people "who are our eyes and ears" to help find partners around the world, he said. That includes two people in Tokyo, three in Seoul, six in Frankfurt and one in South America.
Drive Systems has targeted Europe and the Far East as areas where it wants to find partners. Once partnerships are established, "we see ourselves growing our business," he said.
"We've got to find more business," Davidson said, and that requires a strategy on how to penetrate markets.
The Salem plant provides technology and electronices "to tell motors what to do and how fast," he said. "We sell productivity."
About half of the plant's sales are in foreign markets where its two big industries are paper and material handling, he said.
by CNB