Eco Commerce Exchange (ECE)
Although the latest advances in technology of the internet have provided improvements for individuals to seek information easily, the benefits to companies and organization has not been fully realized. Most of the advances have occurred at the consumer level. In addition, the cost to businesses and organizations to provide the capabilities is labor intensive and expensive particularly in highly targeted segments such as Eco Commerce.
Recognizing this gap, the ECE experts, have provided a unique solution: the 'Eco Commerce Exchange’. Simply, this global exchange *fills the need to 'bundle together Education, Marketing, Financing, and Advice'. It is an interactive portal where 1. enterprises can fill in their characteristics, development stage and reason for seeking customers and funding 2. investors can fill in their characteristics and deals they seek to finance. It guides enterprises and organizations to the most appropriate sources of customers, funding, and donors eliminating the need to fall back on expensive intermediaries. It guides decision makers to business opportunities.
Eco Commerce Exchange (ECE)
The ECE will accelerate access to markets and finance, improve marketing and management efficiency and reduce costs (human & capital), as individuals at local, global and corporate level are connected by highly targeted information, collaboration, and expertise.
The ECE enables entrepreneurs and organizations with very limited budgets and resources to empower business leaders, investors, and policymakers with actionable knowledge, information and speed-to-market solutions. They can share their unique challenges and risks with community of experts to learn how they can effectively finance eco innovations, solve problems, implement solutions and adapt at local level to new management challenges due to adverse impacts of climate change.
It has taken three years of research, with over two hundred experts contributing from diverse backgrounds including industry, cultural, business, academic and public policy. The result is a first of its kind, independent collaboration platform. The effort to design and custom build such a platform is substantial; 18,000 of man hours, 26 months, and millions of dollars. We recognize that it would require major investments and ongoing support for companies and organizations to build and maintain what we have already accomplished and what is planned for the future support of an independent global community of Eco Commerce investors, experts, leaders and learners.
Eco Commerce Ecosystem
Optimizing Efficiency Flow from Research to Market
The ECE is a global business incubator focused on bringing Eco Innovation to market. The basic concept is simple. All size companies worldwide share the same challenges when expanding globally. The goal of the ECE is to leverage and mobilize resources for product demonstration and market entry using web-based communication and soft-landing concepts.
Regional ECEs are built on three way networking infrastructure between sellers, buyers, and investors. The ECE facilitates B2B cooperation, learning, and business development reducing risks inherent for companies that are ready to expand globally. Each regional/ industry ECE hub leverages the Eco Commerce community infrastructure present worldwide, establishing each region as a regional Hub with access to the other regional hubs for collaboration and connection to larger markets globally. Each ECE Hub is designed to provide advisory, soft-landing services and technology deployment comprised of access to: customers, R&D, resources and capital to fuel company growth; markets; and business development services and support.
The soft-landing services in each regional Hub will be developed and validated. Trade missions will be conducted with city officials, business and policy leaders and scientific experts from each ECE Hub visiting, collaborating and learning from each other’s respective region. As a result of completed trade missions, partners will agree to further develop, fund, implement and then manage a specific joint action. The goal of the plan is to validate the technology transfer model and to identify companies and projects which cross the gap from research to market. A Memorandum of Understanding between the ECE Hubs will be signed to form the basis of this work going forward. The benefits are significant and relevant to all partners.
The global Eco Commerce community can be leveraged to reduce risk to business innovators, customers and investors. The collaboration forms a larger and closer international community that will foster Eco Commerce - export/import of Eco Innovation across the ECE Hubs. Easy and early success will result in success. The portal region of each ECE Hub is themselves a soft-landing service provider and B2B advisor, and by definition can act as gateway to network with other business accelerators in the global Eco Commerce ecosystem.
The web-based communication, advisory, and soft-landing service approach will provide all support services common to companies expanding internationally.
*Page 87 - Financing Eco Innovation, Final Report, January 2011, European Commission.
