ZG Worldwide is on the Move!

As ZG Worldwide continues to grow and expand, great headway has been made to ensure ZG Worldwide is on the front lines of emerging business trends. In October this year, President and founder, Lothar Soliwon, traveled throughout the Midwest region to various International Business Summits. These meetings & seminars in Chicago, Champaign and St. Louis enabled ZG Worldwide leadership to establish key connections, obtain competitive data on emerging issues and needs of businesses & allow other business leaders to learn about ZG and our respective business model.

In Chicago, there was an exciting speaker series event sponsored by the British-American Business Council of Chicago. The speaker, James Guyette, CEO of Rolls-Royce Aerospace, focused his lecture on the luxury car business and dictated their respective blueprint as one of the world’s largest producers of aircraft engines (It’s interesting to note that they divested themselves of the luxury car business to BMW). James Guyette highlighted that Rolls-Royce Aerospace has several manufacturing plants in the United States and although they have a large factory in Indianapolis, there are no manufacturing plants in Illinois. Guyette further highlighted that Rolls-Royce Aerospace has many employment opportunities for highly skilled manufacturing workers & a competitive apprentice programs to obtain and train qualified personnel.

Also in October, in Champaign, IL, a seminar highlighting Foreign-Trade Zones at the Small Business Development Center was a lucrative event. Key speakers included Sally Hanley, Director of Business Development for Foreign-Trade Zone #114 in Peoria, IL, and Robert Rosario, Foreign Trade Zone Administrator for Rockwell manufacturing in Champaign.

For those readers who don’t know, a Foreign-Trade Zone (FTZs) is an area geographically inside the United States but legally considered outside its customs territory; it is specially designated and secure, operating under U.S. customs supervision. FTZs are established to encourage and expedite U.S. participation in international trade, to expedite exportation of domestic goods with foreign and domestic content, and to defer payment of duties until goods enter into the commerce of the U.S.  There are eight Foreign-FTZ Trade Zones in Illinois and some subzones. 

The top industries using FTZs are automotive, petroleum, computers/electronic equipment, machinery/equipment and supplies, and pharmaceutical.  The typical FTZ does a significant volume of imports as well as re-export of foreign merchandise.   There are a number of administrative complexities involved that have to be looked at closely to determine whether or not a company is a good candidate to operate in a FTZ.

And finally, to end October, the 2014 International Business Summit in St. Louis was an exciting summit.   Rubin Brown, an accounting and management consulting company and an independent member of Baker Tilley International sponsored the event. Baker Tiley representatives from Brazil, China, Germany, Ireland, and Mexico gave presentations on doing business in their countries.  Steve Burrow, former CEO of the International Division and Asia Business Unit of Anheuser-Busch International, gave a presentation on the cultural considerations in doing business in China.  While St. Louis is nowhere near the size of Chicago, many local companies are doing vibrant global business.  Key contacts were made with many leaders who are involved with various levels of international trade.

Contact ZG Worldwide for additional information.