Connect to doing Business in the Balkans, but first find it in Sandwell

We headed off this morning to a bright and early find it in Sandwell networking meeting held at the Sandwell council house.

Normally well-attended events, this morning saw the topic being ‘Doing Business in the Balkans’ which involved a presentation by Gary Dawson and Živko Serbic from Business 2 Business UK Serbia (B2BUKS).

The presentation explained how things are changing within the Balkans and in particular Serbia which as we all know has experienced problems over the past 30 years especially when it was previously known as multiple entities and referred to as Yugoslavia.

B2BUKS act as go between’s in helping local businesses seek as well as source both trade and export opportunities to and from the Balkans area.

After the presentation, we hooked up with a few people whom we’ve never spoken to before although chances are we have met previously at other networking events in the West Midlands.

Whilst still seated in the council chambers we spoke to Julie Morgan from ‘Place Elements’, Julie explained that she specialises in Town Planning and Urban Design, highlighting that she is only one of a hand full of people in the West Midlands who currently do Urban Design.

After speaking with Julie and heading out of the council chambers we spoke with Anthony Copson a product designer who studied at Aston University and gained a Masters in Product Design. Anthony explained his love and passion for all things product design saying he often has wild and wacky ideas which he looks at the feasibility of bringing to market.

One such idea although not wacky is a safety product that is aimed at the hearing impaired, unable to go into things in-depth as he is currently looking to go to market but firstly looking for suitable protection of the idea.

Then whilst taking the fat off the bacon in our bacon and sausage bap we spoke with Tim Price from Train IT Midlands who explained to us about his wealth of knowledge and experience in all things Microsoft.

Tim is the director of training and helps people and businesses understand that there’s more to word and excel than meets the eye – it’s reported apparently that only 15% of the word and excel capabilities is used by many people.

Tim then introduced us to Tony Andrews who currently undertakes to facilitate work on behalf of SWEDA Ltd who in turn provide training and support to local Sandwell businesses on behalf of Sandwell Council.

Tim quickly ran through his past and how up until August last year he was part of Business Link West Midlands, when at which point he continued to look to provide business advice, although from August onwards it was through his own company.

As the event had come to an end and was emptying, we bumped into Barrie Blackmore from InterVid productions who explained what his business does and what it is looking to do.

Barrie explained that he has been in video production for the past 20 years primarily based up until a few years ago in the equestrian sector.

Now he’s looking to move into assisting within the recruitment market although still in video production. When Barrie explained what he is looking to do exactly he spoke with such excitement and enthusiasm we hope it all works out for him.