We recently brought together key members of the cyber security community to meet with the Department for Trade & Business (DBT).
DBT is keen to showcase the innovation in the UK to the rest of the world and to ensure that other nations have access to the skills, knowledge and products that they might not have readily available in their countries.
As such, we wanted to ensure that the North East cyber security sector was firmly on DBT’s radar and to support our members’ expansion ambitions.
Senior leaders from 10 different companies joined us and three DBT representatives at the event hosted by Womble Bond Dickinson.
DBT’s mission is to ensure that businesses not only know about overseas trading opportunities but are also in a position to export their services to these countries. It is crucial that our community understands the local laws, regulations and preferences of the countries they would like to target. Having a local presence, for instance, is an essential criteria in some nations. DBT explained how they could connect and ready businesses to support their export plans.
The Secure By Design initiative is prompting the UK government to embed it in all UK innovation and that includes SMEs, not just big business.
They were also very forthcoming about export opportunities for UK cyber security businesses and specifically, North East based businesses. One of which was, of course, the North East Saudi Arabia connection.
A key outcome of the discussion was to follow up with a specific meeting to focus on this particular opportunity for our NE cyber community.
DBT explained that their connection network wasn’t just the UK reaching outwards but also nations from around the world reaching inwards too. The UK has an excellent reputation worldwide for innovative programmes and procedures and we’re looked to as an example of initiatives to implement to help national security.
The first port of call for many nations with cyber security enquiries is their UK embassy. DBT will then connect them with British businesses, allowing companies access to their huge network. The Philippines, for instance, have just announced a $1 billion cyber security contract and they contacted the UK embassy for support.
Quantum cyber is an emerging sector which has huge prospects. It is currently being valued at $30 billion. Another area in which DBT can support business growth as other countries look to the UK for process and accreditation standardisation.
Skills, of course, is another area that has huge growth potential. If businesses have or train skills in the sector this is a very exportable product.
If you would like to know more about exporting or to connect with DBT, please contact us and we’ll point you in the right direction.
Make sure you also sign up to our newsletter, follow our socials and check our events page if you want to be included in the CyberNorth Saudi Arabia Export Summit too.