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News

Internationalization

 

One of the main objective for Skywin is to help Walloon Aerospace SME's to conquer new market shares and to reach an international leadership in niche market segments.

The internationalization is one of the major development axis for Skywin.  Among our 100+ members, one finds more than 50 SME's.  For those having a recognized technological advantage or a competitive edge on specific niches of the market, it may be easier to conquer the world.  However, this situation does not reflect the majority of them, which sometimes struggle to maintain their market shares.

In order to support those SME's, Skywin can help in the set up of an adapted commercial strategy and can multiply the networking possibilities, the smaller companies benefiting from the support of the larger ones.  More specifically, Skywin's operational team is also available for guidance and can provides assistance and tools for SME's.

 

Tools for SME's:

1. Participation to international business conventions and events
   In perfect coordination and with the support of the Walloon Agency for Export (AWEX), Skywin helps SME's in their export actions by different means.
   For large events (e.g. Le Bourget and Farnborough Airshows), a Belgian collectivity is systematically organized under the "Belgian Aerospace" flag. Depending on the case, the prime contractor will be either AWEX or its Flemish equivalent, FIT.  For less sytematic events, yet interesting, Skywin organizes either a booth, either a delegation of companies visiting the event.  The novelty here is the possibility to consult the agenda of events where Skywin also describes its participation mode (booth, delegation, simple).  It is also  possible to mark your interest electronically.  For more information about those international events, please consult our agenda.
    
2. Business meetings
   At least twice a year, Skywin organizes business meetings between larger companies and SME's.  One of them fociuses on regional networking between local contractors and subcontractors, whislt the other consists more of giving new international opportunities to our SME's by inviting a foreign contractor (usually tier 1 level company). Besides, Skywin also organises formal or less formal meetings during international events, following the requests of the companies et following the opportunities given by AWEX attachés. 
    
3. Offsets
   At the occasion of larger defence contracts signed at a federal level (typically for the Ministry of Defence), one can have offset obligations profitable for all Belgian companies.  Further than the obligatory aspect associated to offsets, it is worthwhile mentioning that offsets are often an extremely good opportunity for an company to be in contact with a larger company or sometimes prime and to develop a sustainable and mutually profitable relationship.  Skywin, in perfect coodination with EWA, is coordinating those actions at the Walloon level and organizes related business actions.
    
4. European R&D projects preparation and submission
   The European Commission put several financing mecanisms (FP7, JTI Cleansky, etc.)  at the disposal of companies able and ready to invest ressources in research. It is not always an easy task to proceed with the administrative steps necessary to introduce a request properly, nor to understand perfectly the rules behind all the available funding mechanisms.  Therefore, Skywin has a close collaboration with the NCP-Wallonie which supports SME's in those sometimes complicated processes. For instance, JTI Cleansky should publish soon its first Call for Partners, we recommend you to stay tuned and watch our news in order to get the information on time!

Contact person at Skywin

Every request for information related to economic animation or related to internationalization activities should be addressed to:

Mr. Vincent MARCHAL
Deputy Managing Director

 

 

 

Agenda