Accra, March 14, GNA - A day's seminar on international marketing was on Wednesday held to provide Ghanaian companies with practical tools and information needed to prepare them for cross-border expansion and new product markets.

It is expected to guide the participants through global opportunities available with practical and competitive business management, financial readiness, product development and packaging and international business intelligence.

It was organised by Ghana Cyber Group Investments Limited and Xalles Limited of the United States in collaboration with the Ghana@50Secretariat and drew participants from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and other African countries.

Mr Thomas Nash, Chief Executive officer, (CEO) Xalles Limited, took participants through topics like International Markets for ICT Products, Business Process Outsourcing (BOP), Factors of International Expansion, and Creating International Marketing Strategy.

In an interview with GNA, Mr Yaw Owusu, CEO, Ghana Cyber Group, said the workshop was to help participants begin crafting strategies suited to their companies and unique market situations. This was a new approach that would direct their actions towards areas critical for successful international marketing, he added.

Mr Owusu explained that what his company and Xalles sought to do was a business processing outsourcing.

This, he said, meant sending jobs, data processing, accounting and human resource, among other things, to countries including the US. Mr Owusu said entering of data for these big companies cost them about 20,000-30,000 dollars annually but in countries like India and Ghana it cost between 3,000-5,000 dollars which enabled them to save money.

Attention, he said, was shifting to countries such as Ghana because it was cost effective and people turned to be more serious with the work due to the limited opportunity.

Ghana, he noted, was emerging into this half a trillion dollar industry due to the political stability and said the workshop would help to build the industry in Ghana and form an association to assist Small and Medium Enterprises to enter the market and secure contracts in the Americas.

"India has a similar association called the NASSCOM, a powerful association of information technology companies, which collectively work together and protect their interest and this is what we want for Ghana," Mr Owusu said. 14 March 07