Market Research for Your Project.
Most cooperator projects need good market research. It is difficult to get companies to partipate in your project if they do not know how likely it is that they will be able to sell in a foreign market. Commissioning market research may be necessary, but before you spend a lot of money, consider coordinating your market research needs with the ITA members of your project team. Each November, ITA's Commercial Service undertakes extensive work to update the research it makes available on export.gov. The Commercial Service members of your team might be able to request that your industry and your market(s) be made Commercial Service market research priorities.
Spur Company Enlistment with a Letter from an ITA Official.
Talk with the ITA members of your team about getting a letter from an ITA official to recruit for your project activity. Try as you may, companies in your industry might not know yet that you are engaged in your cooperator project. They may not know that you have considerable buy-in from ITA. Getting a letter from an ITA official might be the best way to drive home the point. A letter is a great way to inform companies that the export success information you seek from them is really for ITA and that their success is part of a greater effort, the National Export Initiative. It's an opportunity to inform companies that they can report export success directly to ITA if they prefer. You may find it helpful to refer to the MDCP Overview Chart at trade.gov/mdcp/about. As for safeguarding your membership records, we can settle on a way to send out the letter that would not amount to your giving us your member database. We understand that you usually need to limit access to these. Talk to your ITA team about doing this.
Grants Online and Financial Assistance Management.
On September 20 Lillian Barnes from Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) introduced the five new cooperators to Grants Online. Two or three cooperators from previous years participated as well but we know that some who wanted to participate were not able to do so. We plan to do this again early next summer, probably in July. Until then I recommend that all who need to use Grants Online direct their questions to the Grants Online Helpdesk, 877-662-2478. Remember that Grants Online staff are there to help you with technical questions about Grants Online. They are not authorized to counsel you about what information to put on your quarterly financial report. For this sort of question contact our Grants Specialist Tracy Jackson at Tracy.Jackson@noaa.gov. When she is not available, her colleague Donald Gooding covers for her. You can reach him at Donald.Gooding@noaa.gov.
On October 19 Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing and Services, Nicole Lamb-Hale presented a certificate to University HealthSystems Consortium acknowledging UHC's $425,000 MDCP award. Officials from UHC and Rush University were on hand in Chicago for the presentation. UHC's project will facilitate increases in medical care exports for U.S. academic medical centers.
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