Transcript for:
Market Opportunities and New Business for Advanced Manufacturing Companies

okay well why don't we get things un underway um let me say first of all i couldn't uh think of a better subject for uh for a discussion especially at this time of year uh then market opportunities uh new business opportunities for uh for companies in the field of advanced manufacturing uh you know needless to say over the past few years it's been one heck of a journey for just about everybody in advanced manufacturing in in canada and many many companies have uh have done have gone through this this experience and uh and are are in pretty good shape uh today but a huge amount of change uh not only the pandemic but supply chain disruptions along the way now uh a major war in uh in ukraine that's upsetting commodity markets uh it's upsetting uh supply of of important uh components uh materials uh for the the world economy and so uh in cornell university they've come up with a new term uh it's called vuca and it means a highly volatile uncertain complex and actually forget what the a stands for uh it's not abstract but it's something along those lines but it really kind of capsule encapsulates what uh what many many companies are facing today but of course lots of challenge lots of risk but with every risk comes new market opportunities too opportunities to step in as suppliers in in new areas of business opportunities to especially for canadian companies to step in as as exporters as suppliers to cust new customers around the world in new areas of of innovative products uh to support innovative services so lots of opportunity here too and i'm really glad uh today that we've got a group of experts who can speak not only from the point of view of uh business but also from the point of view of a couple of agencies that are so important in delivering uh the fantastic export and export financing services that canadian companies have available to them i i'd especially like to thank edc edc is our sponsor for today's session edc is a gem uh i it's one of those agencies that not only see themselves as providing service but see themselves as a partner for canadian exporters and are so is so important in in terms of providing not only risk insurance but helping provide financial services that and working as a partner with canadian exporters to allow them to get into and help customers buy their products internationally so thank you so much edc and uh from udc we've got mike brown joining us on our discussion today mike is the commercial account director for uh for export development canada we've also got kurt devite de vries who's uh canada's trade commissioner covering the automotive uh sector and kurtz led uh autonomous connected electric shared lines of business in the automotive sector and uh has worked pretty extensively in that sector and uh and is supporting uh trade commissioners uh around the world in in focusing on this uh this particular area of of innovation and opportunity for canadian companies uh fert is a trade commissioner and this is another gem in terms of the federal government's support for canadian companies doing business around the world i've worked with trade commissioners for more than 30 years and really every time you know the feedback from canadian exporters is is so um so positive in terms of the invaluable service that uh the trade commissioners provide and being able to identify opportunities but also working with companies to make sure that they are able to enter the market uh export markets in a way that makes sense uh for uh their particular uh customers that they're they're focusing on uh so kurt thank you very much for joining us and and then from the industry point of view uh joined by luigi and decerio uh luigi is the r d manager for axiom group and axiom uh specializes in engineering and automotive uh plastic parts and assemblies uh luigi's worked on several special projects including uh vehicle light weighting ev systems and composite materials can kind of bring the uh the perspective from the company that is at the at the cutting edge of innovation in many uh senses in uh canada's automotive sector but also one very interested and and very successful in uh in developing international markets and uh and barry hunt uh barry is president and ceo of prescient x uh he's also the president of uh canadian association of ppe manufacturers uh we've been working with barry over the past couple of years uh supporting a number of his projects developing disinfecting robots developing new types of manufacturing processes for ppe a real leader in in helping companies across the country bring new medical devices ppe to market internationally as well as uh here in canada uh but barry's got a long history of of working in the medical device sector including the design development implementation of new products and processes and services uh in this sector and does uh does a lot of that business internationally so gentlemen thank you very much for joining us and uh really look forward to to this this discussion hope it's not all about risk and uh all the challenges out there but uh uh but focusing on many of the new opportunities that are arising internationally as well so sean i'm going to pass it over to you great thanks jason and thank you very much again to our panelists for joining us here today and for those of you who have signed in again thank you for joining us for those who couldn't join us we are recording today's session to see aware uh and we will share those recordings with those who couldn't make it also we're going to have a section if you will a period of time at the end of the conversation for any q a if you do have questions as we go you can feel free to use the q a box at the bottom of your screen i'll be monitoring those we'll make sure we ask those of our panelists uh as we complete the panel discussion here so that's probably gonna be top of the hour so with that said i wanted to jump into the first question and i thought luigi i would i would start this question with you so i'll read it off if you want to unmute yourself and then we'll go from there so the first question and again we'll have luigi start what are some new growth markets uh for canadian manufacturers you know based on your experience that you're aware of luigi hey uh thanks sean um yeah the the new growth markets and and thank you jason for uh the introduction he mentioned some of them in there and i've worked on a few of those things uh the ev market seems to be a very big one electric vehicles and uh also this industry 4.0 data driven ai based uh technology on you know it's it's not necessarily a market but a an avenue of exploration for people to you know increase efficiency and production in their plant and it seems like the industry is moving in this direction and in automotive uh with the high volumes that we deal with we've seem to be moving in that direction as well um and i think some of the other interesting growth markets are in nano materials and 3d printing and of course robotics which tie into all of those things combined right and and you know maybe there's a little bit of a misconception about ai and robotics that you know there's going to be the uh the terminators walking around but i think in manufacturing it's a completely different look you're investing in in technologies that are going to help you produce more with higher quality you know and and better timing so i think those are some of the interesting uh spaces i think that uh barry can probably touch upon the uh other growth areas obviously in the health and uh pp and things that have happened during the pandemic that came about almost you would say in a revolutionary way where all these other things that i'm mentioning are a little more evolutionary in our industry yeah thank you yeah barry please yeah i'll maybe pick up on that so on the medical front on the pandemic front yeah there's there's a lot of growth area potential building sciences for one so safe indoor air is what we need going forward of course and and obviously in the ppe um area there's kind of a general theme here as we get older here in this country and around the world as people age we're really looking for comfort and convenience so we have to consider that in our ppe the stuff that's you know been designed and manufactured in the past has not been very comfortable it's not been very easy to breathe through and and so here in canada we have really taken the bull by the horns to make things comfortable and easy breathing and easy to work with and i think that's a big part of our export strategy you know they say you can build a business quality price service pick any two and you can build a business and i think canada's brand really is quality and service and i would kind of combine those and say the innovation and inventiveness of canada is the combination of that quality and service and that's really what we want to export better products that work better more comfortable et cetera that's great barry thank you so i'm going to take this question and adjust it a little wee bit for for curt and mike just based on their experience because it's really across a number of different sectors in in both cases so kurt i'll start with you if that's okay and then we'll move to mike and it'll be the same question for you mike so what i would say is is here's the scenario i'm a manufacturer in canada and i want to enter some new growth markets and i've got some capabilities and maybe the capability to invest what are some of those high potential growth markets that are there right now for the waiting that that i should consider entering in and maybe think of this from the perspective of different kinds of manufacturers that may want to enter some of these different markets yeah okay yeah i'll give it my best shot i mean it's a broad question but um i'll take my sector perspective and kind of boil it down to more specific so like yeah electric vehicles are gonna be a thing like they're starting um it's just the beginning of it there seems to be at least in europe and in north america like a regulatory embracing of this and and the oems and the new entrant manufacturers get it and they're going for it the asian market they feel it's inevitable and they're moving towards it so this is something that we assume to be you know we can assume or maybe perhaps we can assume for this conversation to be a a midterm to long-term trend so we're thinking light weighting you know any sort of way to lightweight any way to take wires out of the vehicle you know any innovations so we're talking innovation again here it's just how can you as a manufacturer use your innovation your engineering your expertise on building lines into the future supply chain of the electric vehicle so i see a lot of opportunities in you know carbon lightweighting type manufacturing i i see aluminum you know depending on the price aluminum has become an area of of interest so what i do in my work i work amongst all the traditional manufacturers but i would say the last five years has been like a boom of interest coming from global oems looking at this ecosystem for innovative ideas and how to translate these innovative ideas into the product via the vehicle into the enterprise the business environment or into the production floor so i see a lot of manufacturers here are really excellent there's a 120 years of history of excellence and they're very good at building outlines and a lot of europeans and asian prospects they don't know that so that's part of my job i take them in and show them around but but i see a lot of cutting edge canadian manufacturers that have ip in their production and that's something to consider too it might not be what you make it's how you make it because carbon fiber is something that's been around for a while just how do you do it at scale like how can you do it at high volumes these are the key questions that automakers are looking to jurisdictions like canada and its manufacturing base for answers so those are kind of starting points uh like specific ones i was trying to be specific for the audience but broadly to kind of go broad again find out the demand you know find make a contact base you can talk to people like me or our network or edc and or or yourself it just like right now what i see in automotive is the traditional players have become open books they've been very proud for 100 and something years some of them very internal but they realize that they can't do it all internally and they have to look outside of their own box and they're very very open to sharing their problem statements what their challenges are and so what i would recommend to manufacturers is do your research find contacts find out what are the problems of manufacturing and you might have a solution and then you're going to do well you know and then you'll get into making whatever widgets or pieces of the vehicle at high volume but knowing the problem first is is uh you know i would say it's half the battle mike i'm gonna pass it up to you no thanks curt and i agree with what you're saying i think i'm gonna try and pull it back further from automotive but i think it comes down to knowing where the opportunities exist for what you're selling and what the physical limitations are so if you're a company that is engaged in selling large pieces of equipment capital intensive then your new growth markets are probably going to be a bit more north south than traveling over the ocean right now it's tough to get a shipping container it's tough to pay that freight charge you're better if you're working in a locale that is closer to your own home base so i think i'm seeing more companies going north south right now in more traditional heavy manufacturing type industries similarly if you start looking into areas of more portable smaller size technology offerings in manufacturing then we're seeing more of companies leveraging free trade agreements and maybe looking to europe or starting to look more at asia because the product can move a bit more and there's more openness to exploring these other markets where there might be less either actual less real competition or less perceived competition from other companies stepping aside from changing countries there is also a certain merit considering diversification within your existing country base does your technology have a different application a different use case edc is on a lot of work working with companies who have a use case for their product that might be intended for heavy metal manufacturing but maybe if it's an iot type technology it could actually be transformed in a way that could make it suitable for food production lines or things like that so maybe minimal investment in the product can create a whole new line of revenue so we've seen a lot of that happening so both geographic and industrial diversification but i think what's really mattered is as companies are looking at this diversity is how they're positioning themselves ultimately leadership of a company controls where you look but they have to know how to sell into that new market um the earlier comment you can have it whether cheap you can have it good or you have it fast so they have to know which of the values are going to matter most for each target industry and make sure that they fit with the needs of the industry i think navigating that matrix of things is what's going to make companies successful looking at new opportunities i want to add something mike if you don't mind another trend i'm seeing especially out of europe is clean making it clean and and this is it's been jargon for a long time but now there's a regulatory framework that creates a credit or value to being clean and a lot of the european prospects that we've been dealing with for the last couple of years have been looking for ways to validate and verify whether or not something from a supply chain is compliant with all the esg type standards that their governments put on them and a lot of this is coming out of the um regrettable volkswagen uh diesel scandal uh they turfed a lot of the board i met a lot of the new leadership in my journey as a trade commissioner and they're very since this is a real thing this is not going to go away we're we're behind as a north american jurisdiction these regulations and uh i would say the asian markets are kind of just looking and watching and waiting for opportunities to really demand it but the european leaders uh they they demand this and and and they um look at the uh tesla model of uh of cashing in on carbon offsets as as a very real and futuristic revenue stream so as a supply base if if one wants to tie in with them one must validate and verify that they're doing the clean thing that's going to give more value to their customer so the margins may be thin on the traditional currency exchange but if you're looking at carbon exchange there's some b there could be some very big margins i've seen a lot of proposals out and uh it's something for manufacturers to consider as being as being a real thing in the next 10 to 20 years great thanks kurt so i guess uh it sounds like almost no matter where you look there are lots of opportunities the key is either a you know recognizing maybe north american opportunities first maybe even within canada first different use cases as you suggested mike but then looking at your existing use case north south like uh and before maybe going overseas just because of some of the supply chain constraints that may exist and but but that's still an opportunity obviously um depending on you know what you're manufacturing so the next question then was really around what are the key steps for a manufacturer that who wants to enter some of these growth markets um you know and along those lines if you look at some of these key steps what risks might exist uh barry you okay with uh starting us off uh sure yeah so so whenever you're gonna go into a new market you've got to really understand i think the old market and because that legacy is market is is powerful so when you're trying to introduce a new product or a new service or a new process change is hard and so you've got to understand all the barriers to change first and then you have to understand all of your competition which includes all your competitors who who are involved in the legacy industry so people who want to stay on petrochemical versus you know solar or wind or people who want to stay with gas powered cars instead of evs etc you've got to understand all those dynamics and [Music] not only do you have to understand the competition you have to look around then and find collaborators people to work with on r d and and introduction to the market and find the real champions to support because those early adopters and and influencers make all the difference in whether you're going to be successful or not they say in change you know the 80 20 rule the burrito principle it's it's really it's like a a 10 um 80 and and 10. it's uh 10 of people are champions and 10 percent of people are dedicated to keeping things the way that they were and the 80 are waiting to see who's going to win at each end of the spectrum you have to be one of the winners that you know one of the leaders so you have to be seen as a leader and to introduce something new um from my perspective it has to basically meet three parameters safe fun and cool if it's safe fun and cool it's something that's sustainable it's something that people will buy again it's something that will build a brand etc etc so yes clean yes all these other things but if it's not cool kids won't buy it if it's a public thing if it's a retail thing it's got to be cool it's fun that's i guess for the older generation but it definitely has to be safe and then on the risk side no matter how much you plan for introduction of a new product or a new anything uh it's going to cost you twice as much as what you think to introduce that to develop that so and maybe another 10 on top and same thing with what what's your target date for launching that new product it's going to be twice as long as what you think and maybe another 10 percent it's um it never rolls out the way that you think it does so those those are the big risks i think you're going to be under capitalized um no matter how much you pre-plan you have to have some kind of a contingency for it great thanks barry so i'm going to go with this same question what are the key steps to entering these growth markets and or what are the risks uh luigi any thoughts on that based on your experience from from some of the products and that you've been investigating yeah absolutely um and to barry's point about the 10 um wanting to keep things the same and listening back to kurt and mike when you um add clean technology sustainable technologies to existing things like petrochemical they could become new or can be perceived as new as well again and you know things that are legacy yes they're legacy but they're already here so sometimes adaptation and infrastructure on existing infrastructure works just as well as introducing something new which usually costs a lot more money right so that's one way to mitigate those risks because there's always going to be risks like barry said especially from the monetary side and the things that we're speaking to here a lot of them are very very costly activities you know these big manufacturing things but even these nano technologies the development of nanotechnologies so one of the things i think that the industry could look at is and do more of i believe is is is prototyping rapid prototyping and 3d printing and this this concept's been around for quite a while in advanced manufacturing and maybe hasn't hit you know the pinnacle that it could be at or the usefulness so that's a very interesting thing and being an r d you know before we ever build mass manufacturing tools or anything we always have to prove concept and the usual way to do that is by prototyping you know as small as and efficiently as possible and moving forward in that direction so that that was the perspective that i um thought of when i was listening to this discussion and this is very interesting for advanced manufacturers because like uh the panel was discussing earlier even though uh there's a lot of uncertainty right now it's a strange time feels like there's a lot of opportunity as well right yeah yeah it's a great point luigi mike any any thoughts to add on the key steps to entering growth markets and the risks that uh manufacturers should be aware of well you know at edc we love to talk about risk so uh plenty of thoughts on this um i think it came to mind first when i saw the question was that my general experience has been a lot of companies under prepare for entering a new market uh companies tend to think that what worked in canada or the us will work just as well in a different market and they maybe don't have as good of eye on the regulatory environment as they maybe need to so for example there's plenty of stories of companies in the food space where they didn't pay attention to local packaging laws and had to throw out their first batch of product because it couldn't be put on the shelf because it didn't conform to local regulations for nutritional information or something for the sake so there's definitely a role for making sure you're leveraging the right professional services firms or advisors to make sure you're not glossing over such regulatory risks another thing that it surprises me with my credit background is companies um don't are not always conscious of who they're doing business with in some of these markets and it's often been a conversation of for example who are you selling to oh i'm selling to gm in mexico well gm in mexico is legally different than gm in michigan so it's a different credit risk it actually matters when it comes to your bank it's a different company and even within countries if you're dealing with a new offshoot arm of multinational um these are sophisticated companies they are setting up bankruptcy remote subsidiaries for a reason that that company has a problem that they can shut it down without having to worry about the rest of their operations and i think people can sometimes get tied up in looking at the name and not thinking about the full implications of who they're actually doing business with and the last thing it's a dangerous line to tread on for companies entering a new market is to be careful not to bite off more than you can chew it takes time to develop a market from scratch especially if you're going with the big step of investing in a local market setting up production trying to gear to local demand many of us are old enough to remember the hyundai pony when hyundai first came to north america it didn't go very well and it took them weaving and coming back basically 20 years later to make it work so you only get one chance for first impression and it applies to companies entering new markets as well yeah that's great i almost forgot about the hyundai pony but it's been a while since i've seen one that's for sure uh kurt any uh any thoughts on the steps to entering growth markets uh that you would share yeah yeah no yeah i think it's been well discussed um but you know just to throw a pitch in for our services i mean that's what we're here for is to help you understand what you know you don't know what you don't know right and to help you you know understand these things or at least be aware that there might be uh different risks involved in that you might see given your perspective of being a canadian-based business so that that's where we come in for a lot of these conversations and uh and it depends really on whether or not you just want to export directly or try a uh investment entry like mike was saying as well i mean those are two uh very different things and um a lot of complexities to both for that matter so um yeah i think uh i think that pretty much sums it up i think we we did pretty good job at uh hammering that one out yep great no that's good and you know our goal here today is to help those who are joining us who are considering joining you know or entering a new market what should they be considering what are the steps to take so that was really good so here's the next question kind of along the lines of preparing to and and and uh beginning to enter a new market so the question is this what information is valuable we've talked a lot about capturing information knowing the market you're going into knowing the regulatory environment what information is valuable and can assist in making informed decisions about growth mike do you want to kick us off on that one happily so it's really a broad question because every company is going to have a different set of needs but the best thing you can do is be open with the people you trust and your networks you trust so i've spoken with many companies over the years who have gotten great value out of local chambers of commerce see ceo clubs groups like ngen or other associations who have plenty of people willing to share their time and experience beyond that obviously the trade commissioner service as kurt mentioned is a great partner for such things and edc has been doing a lot of work in the last five six years investing in this area ourselves we've done a comprehensive revamp of our website to provide free information to companies on things such as exporter frequently asked questions country business guides ways of entering new markets and other resources of that nature so it really is about the pre-work putting in the time talking to people and last but not least in my opinion is also including in that your professional services talk with your accountant auditor and talk with your banker your banker i know some people have feelings over the pandemic the bankers might not have always felt they were there for their success but coming out of this bankers want to work with their clients and see them grow you talk with a bank early on you'll be able to find out how the bank can support you in this new market or if that new market poses risks to your existing operations and the bank can help you come up with a strategy or a local partner institution in the other market that helps you succeed they aren't there to punish you they're there to help you succeed i think that's a really important message it's great yeah ultimately the bank's success is is your success right so um so i'll move that same question over to luigi you know from your experience luigi what information is valuable and can assist in making good solid decisions when you're entering uh new markets um yeah well the points that mike was where it was hitting on are perfect i mean you have to talk to ebc and your lender is very very important and i feel like a lot of canadian banks there's there's a mixed understanding of you know whether they even have an interest in doing global uh investments you have to talk to them and understand that and that they might be more conservative or more hey we're just you know doing real estate here locally and basically you know and then people are looking to you know get their local bank to finance some big projects so lenders are very very important and and like he alluded to the just local chambers and engine as well and things like that but also when you're doing your own research i mean stats can just uploaded a huge uh covet 19 pandemic data set and there's a lot of information there and um i like to go on the canada buy sell thing and just look at what is out there and what the government is buying because it gives you an idea of you know what's going to happen in the future right if the government is buying something up you're like oh well there must be preparing for something or they have an understanding of you know the trends and things that you might not see as well so i like to use you know some seems like a basic resource but stats can and and canada by cell are very powerful ones and then other simple things uh as well you know speaking about just following trends like listening to wait what is elon musk doing what is tesla doing because at the end of the day um with our experience anyway tesla and a lot of the uh oems and and maybe kurt can speak to this they seem like they want to be manufacturing closer to their plants now and you know this is going to lead into obviously sustainable things where hey i'm an ev company and i'm bringing in parts from all over north america on you know diesel trucks or things like that they don't want to do that and going forward there might be more of a need to um be closer to the assembly plants that you're dealing with you know especially in long-term relationships like the automotive ones so i i don't know if kurt has any insight on that aspect of it but those are the things that i would kind of touch on yeah i think why i think you nailed the trends like i would say know what your customers doing you know know what they're thinking again know their pain points know their what they think are threats or or risks and then you know position yourself as a solution provider but it also preps you to to get ready you know if they're going to pull out of a market and you're going into the market to chase them a bad idea right like just understand what what their thinking is and their approach to market and yeah there's a big trend towards you know you can call it onshoring you can call it friend showing you know this is something that uh you know this current administration in the us is very big on and we're very big we've always have been you know we kind of got thrown out of the tent the last administration had to fight to get our way back in but we're in a different regime now so friend shoring is the big one right um international security is a big uh a big element to decision making now in businesses that you know 10 years ago was a free trade global trade group hug mentality right like it was no we'll never go back to those days well history kind of suggests we have cycles of globalism and then regionalism and continentalism or whatever you want to say so you know we got to keep in mind as businesses that this is probably going to happen is going to be beyond our control and you know we have to feed into it or become irrelevant and uh i actually had another point i wanted to throw in about you know key steps to entering growth markets and risks yeah know where your customers get your anchor customer but some of um some government programs do exist to support and in our side we have something called can export that can help you offset some of your risks for these markets as well so i kind of wanted to get that last plug-in before we got too far in our questionings here but we do actually put our money where our mouth is and uh we'll fund some uh some interesting ideas and proposals that the private sector will put on the table so i i thought that would be good for our audience to know before we uh kind of forget about it there sean yeah no that that's great i'm thinking before we wrap up uh and go into q a uh maybe give yourself and mike another chance to talk about any resources available that uh those attending today or manufacturers can access so appreciate that barry any thoughts on the information that's valuable and can assist in making uh informed decisions about growth uh well sure i mean there's the obvious uh you know what's the market size who are the players etc but um understanding the actual procurement path that's going to work whether it's a new one or whether it's an old one um because it's not always as straightforward as what you think you can have the best mousetrap in the world or the best price the best service best whatever but you might not get the order and uh and it was really interesting when kurt mentioned uh friendsharing because friends crop up everywhere so understanding the connections in an industry um where the friends are whether it's you know connections in multinational companies with governments or whether it's you know the procurement agent you're trying to work with has got a you know a cousin or whatever um people buy from their friends and uh so it's important for our government of course to be friends with other you know nations that we can sell to but the politics run deep everywhere and it's not just government politics there's corporate politics and um you know it's it's it's everywhere and we have to understand all those nuances on the procurement path just as much as we understand our product and our market and our specs performance requirements etc uh we have to understand that procurement pathway so that market intelligence is important to know that's great thanks barry uh so the next question then what relationships we talked about information we talked about opportunities talk about information now what relationships can be helpful in fueling international growth and helping you move along that path kurt you want to to start this one off yeah sure sure you know so i'm going to be uh maybe a little confident here and say us you know where you're we could be your first stop and you know there's just quite a few of us like i'm part of our domestic network and uh actually my esteemed colleague greg rust is uh kind of our expert on engine in our team in in toronto we have about 40 somewhat trade commissioners and we're all organizing the sectors so my job is to run around you know in our territory here in canada and get to know my sector inside out from the you know guy who thinks he has the next best backup mirror and meet him at tim hortons to uh talking with the uh senior innovative uh executives at gm canada you know so my portfolio is pretty wide i get to know everybody and then my counterparts and in my case it's germany it's japan it's the bay area silicon valley it's detroit uh korea to some extent uh monterey mexico the southeast you know i talk with my colleagues all the time like we get very close and we exchange a lot and i can tell you that you know getting to know someone like myself or my colleague greg rust or or or my other colleagues depending on what your your ultimate sales sector is uh that could you know exponentially increase your network because it's not just us like i'm just the face of the network there's a really uh there's a lot of depth behind myself and that depth has additional depth because they know the local chambers of commerce they might know senior executives at your next customer right um and if you're relevant we'll do that intro if you're not relevant we'll play the role as a gatekeeper and say well you know they're not looking for apples they're buying oranges so i'm sorry about that but maybe you should start considering to sell these apples right so that's where we can have these conversations and then you know when the time is right you know and i put my air quotes up because we have to see you know how ready you are or how ready the client is to actually pull off their plan then we start to un unleash our rolodex of contacts and intelligence and and play that role as a counselor to you and and so that's uh yeah that's how we work so i would say happy to be the first stop um and uh yeah and and that that's just not myself or my colleagues there's a whole huge network that's existed for about 126 years in 160 something places around the world uh at your fingertips so to speak if the plan is right and the case makes sense that's great thanks kurt uh mike do you want to be the next year what relationships can help in fueling international growth from your perspective yeah i think you know kurt has a great point the trade commissioner service is a great starting point and leveraging their can export program he mentioned is a key step a lot of companies help to free the market entry costs beyond that it does kind of chunk down depending on what you're in what point of business you're in so i mentioned food companies earlier as an example i know some food companies that when they are on vacation they will just walk through a local grocery store and look to see what's popular what's in the premier locations on the shelves so in person market scouting be it grocery store be it something more like a trade show it's invaluable to get experience seeing what people are actually buying what needs exist sometimes you only identify those by being there beyond that there's also the opportunity of following your existing customers if you are a strategic supplier to a customer maybe bring those conversations up a notch with your customer and say how can i better support you in your next market and that kind of comes with an embedded market entry strategy and similar but different to that is if you identify a market gap but it's bigger than your own capabilities finding a partner who can go with you so if you make half of a widget and somebody else makes the other half maybe you can come up with some kind of a business arrangement that lets you combine your forces and go into a new market that way so again you have to have identified the gap but if you can bring another partner along with you then you're going in with complete solution instead of going there and kind of waiting for the business to arrive so it really does depend on what line of business you're in but i think there's a lot of opportunities out there and again i think talking to the right people is critical in this process thanks mike and just remind those of you joining us if you have a question drop it in the q a panel we'll be getting to those very soon here we're moving into our last question here so uh same question then for yourself luigi from your perspective your experience uh what relationships can be helpful in fueling that international growth if you want to enter new markets um well yeah absolutely what uh kurt and mike uh we're touching on that i mean their uh government agencies one of the things that we do here i'm being an r d manager every time we have an idea or um there's an innovation we scout the government websites and call all of our contacts and say are there any programs available for you know this topic or this area or this market and you know or working with your local you know representatives and they might know and and are your local chambers but the first step we always take is always to look for programs that exist because as kurt said they know other things and people that we just wouldn't know being on this end of it we have the ideas we have the innovations we have the you know the proposals but we don't necessarily have the contacts or know which direction to go in and uh and like mike was saying before we don't necessarily know the regulations so they might say oh you have a great idea that you want to hit the market with but honestly you can't hit that market with that because it's just not allowed or the regulatory environment won't allow it so definitely um you know networking with um people in industry but people in associations you know we have uh you know being automotive you have apna and things like that that really help you understand and not necessarily because it's difficult to go and speak with your competitors and things a lot of people in the industry do know each other and they do speak to each other and you know when they do casually run into each other things like that but you don't necessarily go to them and ask hey what what are you working on right now right because they they uh have their relationships with their customers and i think what mike said is very important especially in our industry in automotive is you got to know what your customers are doing and what they want right um you know we don't necessarily uh sell directly to the public and yes it's important to know what the public is interested in like barry was saying before you know if something's not cool and and not in trends it doesn't matter if if you have a great idea it might not sound right so that that's important as well so but but definitely the contacts in the industry and going to your government representatives government agencies i think i don't know if kurt knows what what that website is but i think canada now has a website where you can um track through saying what your your needs are and it will tell you what programs that you may be eligible for so i i can't remember what the site is off my heart but it's there and i don't know if we can make it available to the uh the people after if we find it but it's a very interesting thing process to go through before you start yeah we you know just quick quick uh response we do it's not it's not our department global affairs canada i think it's innovation science economic development canada we we call it i said as a kind of acronym but um i believe that is the portal you're talking about and if you punch in yeah your profile they ask you prompting questions and then ultimately you end up with a shortened list of programs and you know i'm i'm just over five years working in government and i was surprised within the first year as how many programs are to offset risk to kind of fill in this like gap we have between seed money and pension money we have this gap and there's a lot of things that we have available um in terms of programming to help companies grow from you know the hard working startup where you know it might be a small family business that wants to become that next 500 employee company so there's a lot out there and it could be very um confusing to say the least that's a good comment on that one luigi yeah thanks kurt and luigi appreciate that so barry for you then same question from your experience what relationships uh can be useful when it comes to international growth well i i think all relationships and i know that sounds a little bit um you know hokey but um it it's quite true so if you look at the canadian economy about ninety percent of canadians work for small and medium enterprises you know smes ninety-nine percent of our gdp is from smes and ninety-eight percent of our exports are from smes well smes have to work together with other smes with government with everybody to fill in gaps and simultaneously when you collaborate with other people um you've got expertise in one area and expertise in another area and you put two experts together from two different areas and you fill in the gaps between the silos that's where 90 of innovation occurs and innovation really drives our growth here at home and for exports and so when i say everybody i mean everybody but you know if fairly new to me is understanding how important it is for industry to collaborate with government and vice versa and years and years and years of going to iso meetings all over the world i've seen how different countries have worked together industries and government and and i look at a company like a country like sweden for example and they punch way above their weight in exports but they also punch above their weight in setting international standards and they punch above their weight in government support for their industries to help write those standards it's it's quite incredible and uh it's it's very effective and when it comes to the collaboration side i can see you know in my one field of ppe for example um i'm involved with a company that did a developed a whole new process for non-woven textiles for melt blown polypropylene developed for ppe initially but now can be repurposed for separators and batteries for evs um you know with this new you never know what's going to come of a new process when you have things working together another example is the pathogen detection coming from the food industry here in canada um then repurposed for um copic detection uh in these lucia kits uh you know an rt lamp technology and they can be repurposed again for building technologies for sensing pathogens in air et cetera so that s spin-off effect of that initial collaboration when you take one expert from one area and another expert from another you know and working together it's incredible so all relationships i guess would be the answer for for fueling growth so and let me take a a kind of a ask a follow-on question to that barry and you can start or anybody else the panel can jump in so if i had a product that i'm producing we've talked a lot about understanding different use cases and through collaboration identifying different ways this product might be used you know collaboration is the tool to get there but but how do i drive that collaboration who who could i reach out to for example or what could i attend where i might be able to connect with people who i could have these kind of conversations with to say you know we produce a and negative you know have you ever thought of taking a and using it in b what kind of environment would that look like and what could a manufacturer do to put themselves in that environment well i think sharing your level of expertise you know one of the things in the end gen program for example is identifying your intellectual property and what you'd be willing to share and collaborate so it's scanning through those uh documents to see who's doing what and trying to you know find uh and just pick up the phone and call someone you know the the contact information is there i think that's key anybody else want to add to that uh from your own experiences how to find those collaborations where other folks can help you identify where you could create new use cases for your product or service nobody it's a really tough one like it i've had just like gary kind of said there's the ability just having conversation and it becomes almost a what if what if you were to take that technology and adapt it for x industry how would that happen what do you think and it just prompts that thought that get gets it going but i don't think there's a necessarily a magic bullet that starts that process it can just be a random conversation with somebody you've never met before or it could be a trusted advisor who's sharing an insight like i can answer only through my sector is like the automotive sector has has recently opened up the traditional oems have opened up scouting platforms where they'll take in proposals from startups scale-ups doesn't matter from anybody as long as they have a strong automotive use case like the key ingredient success strong automotive use case the ability to survive a very rigorous due diligence and they'll earn proof of concepts but being open-minded enough to change to co-develop the product with the customer you know ultimately is the the patience to do that is is a key ingredient and uh the ability to survive a three to seven year conversation uh on the journey to becoming uh you know into the next generation production so they're they're out there a lot of them have been looking at software some hardware innovations anything again like nano carbon fiber light weighting esg compliance i mean i'm kind of using buzzwords there but those are the areas of interest uh they exist in all the markets nearly so and uh they they do public calls so all you need to do is if you know your sector you can find it really you know that's it that's a specific case regarding auto other sectors i'm not too sure about but i i likely will have a trade commissioner colleague who would know in much more greater detail than myself okay great sean sean i've found a lot of success in going to nrc and uh and specifically to nrc irap um advisors and to universities that we do research with and just asking the question who do you know that could do this or who do you know that could do that or here's what i'm looking for here's what i can really use and through their networks they've been really good at finding you know people to collaborate with that's great thanks barry so it's really about being open about what you are you know getting out there sharing what you are working on uh and networking with folks could be from trusted advisors to to other peers in the industry using associations like as you mentioned very uh engine has different directories and groups you could join where you could identify others ip that could be complementary as well so lots of sources of these collaborations to find different use cases for your product or service i want to make sure uh we we jump into some of these questions we've got more time left but i know sometimes people tend to uh to to move to another meeting so i want to make sure we capture these before we uh go too far so there was a first question and and i'm going to open these up so first to jump in uh feel free to uh to answer this um and if i don't get a somebody jumping in quick i'll i'll ball and told somebody uh but here's the first one in the canadian context are inter-provincial trade barriers a big constraint for manufacturers to sell their products outside of their province i think and i feel bad saying time and time again it depends on what you're selling there is often a challenge with supporting across the span of the country so if you're selling a big piece of industrial equipment from ontario if you're selling it to the bc interior or to newfoundland how are you going to provide local on-site support and service what are you going to do to support your customers when things come up that is often a big challenge in terms of interprovincial trade barriers i don't profess to be an expert it's not an export by our definition but i do know in certain industries uh there are requirements for products to be made food being an example uh especially for example in breweries uh product has to be made locally or else it can't be brought across borders so there are definitely some barriers but i think from a manufacturing side it's more availability of timely quality on-site support great thanks mike kurt anything to add to that at all from your perspective not not much really i think you named it mike it depends on what you're selling you know there's uh you know really there's a component of the canadian economy that's fairly regulated you know there's sectors that are fairly regulated and then there's other ones that are fairly deregulated and each of them has provincial perspectives so really i don't have much more to say other than you know if the question was maybe about auto parts i would say there's likely nothing in the way but um if it were alcohol or spirits there probably are a lot of uh uh hoops and and regulations to overcome to uh to hit a market next door to us in the same country so um yeah i don't really have much more to say on it than that okay appreciate that and and barry luigi jump in if i was going to go the next question but if you want to jump in on that one feel free i was going to say that as far as provincial trade barriers i don't find many of those in most sectors there is a little bit still in the building sciences because the building codes are administered provincially but i think the national building code has done a good job of allowing alternatives you know to come forward but i do find there's a lot of provincial favoritism in procurement when it comes to government stuff hospital staff medical staff etc so not so much a trade barrier is preferences yes a little yeah finger on the scale yeah and an extension of that becomes things such as engineering or other professional services often are also uh there are borders for that as well or barriers yeah yeah all right so the next question that we uh have here uh is from mr folds so he asked and i'm not sure if anybody can can speak to this but he asks for the panel to comment on the scope of opportunities around the hydrogen supply network anybody here feel comfortable speaking to that i'm gonna take a stab at it because uh yeah there's a big debate in in the sector right um in my sector auto is it hydrogen fuel cell is it battery electric is it likely both to be honest uh so yes big opportunities yes there are multi multi multi millions of dollars to build these refueling stations transit stations the technology needed is tightly held uh if you're looking at partners you're looking at japan and korea they're all in on hydrogen they think that uh the battery electric people to uh just think that they can take on north america or out to lunch you know they'll say very frankly um given our range that we have to deal with and then the current technology of batteries the battery people on the other hand say no no no no this is really clean and the next generation they have faith in the next generation of battery technology will overcome this you know 500 miles per battery situation we have now and move us into 2000 so that's uh yeah like it's interesting i i'm in these debates a lot i work with germans and i work with japanese and i work with koreans and i work with people in the bay area that are betting or investing in all of them so i can tell you that yes there'll likely be hydrogen fueling stations infrastructure all across the country yes there will be charging stations and yes it'll be very very costly to build and there'll be many new things to make and there'll be many opportunities and i thank god what kurt's saying it does create a bit of a bifurcation in the auto space as well because to run a natural sorry to run a hydrogen engine you still need an engine whereas if you're running an ev you don't need an engine with combustion features so it's going to create a bit of uh i think a proxy or a bit of a battle frankly between the parts of the supply chain when it comes to propulsion technology i know there's been lots of talk as well about how clean is hydrogen if it's hydrogen derived from natural gas as an example blue versus green hydrogen there's also the lingering thoughts of driving around in a bomb not giving that any credence or not but just saying that some people are apprehensive about driving around with pressurized hydrogen in their vehicle so i think it's still a sector with a lot of room for growth i think we've seen more interest in it in mass transit than in personal use in my opinion and i think there's still a lot of good technology out there but and i think very much occurred i think it will end up being part of the future we're just not there yet okay yeah sean i would um say that i think we're really going to see the hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells in rail trucking and mass transit and i really think you're going to be primarily ev in the consumer space and i think that's going to be the separation the the uh the practicality of ev in a rail or trucking is just not there and there are clean sources of hydrogen you know we have bruised nuclear looking for a place to um part company with a lot of hydrogen because they have a you know a ready source of hydrogen from their process i i don't see that as being the issue it's logistics of rolling it out for just one or two industries is going to be tough here for canada but i think there's definitely a market for in the future okay thanks barry so barry along that there was actually a question that came in just for you uh so we'll get to that here right now if you're up for it so it's this question for barry are there any collaborations between government and industry and other jurisdictions that you've found particularly impressive or effective that should be a consideration to canadian governments well yes i go back to that sweden example it's not just sweden korea is well supported china is well supported japan's well supported germany is well supported where government is funding um you know people from industry to write international standards for products and i think what a lot of people don't understand is all of the iso standards that are out there for products uh are basically there for the purposes of trade their charter and iso in 1947 was to facilitate international trade here in canada we look at our standards a little bit different a little bit more naively i guess because you know we'll have a number of doctors on medical committees for example and it's all about patient safety and we keep losing sight of how important to our homegrown domestic industry those standards can be for our manufacturers and and we consistently lose that so i have a lot of admiration for the countries who do support you know industry as far as helping pay for all those you know weeks abroad to write all of the standards et cetera et cetera it's very very key and i would love to see that change here in canada i think that that would be a tremendous difference okay great thanks luigi any comments on any of these discussions that are happening that you'd like to add to the conversation uh yeah one of the things i was thinking we spoke about uh you know the the vehicles and the personal transportation versus the you know rail and the and the mass transit but also there could be uh from my understanding and people i've spoken to opportunities and other fuel cell and cell technologies related to actual buildings and infrastructures and generators and things like that there's a lot of hybrid technologies coming out that you know right now the costs are very high so it it will only be a few companies but my understanding is from some of the contacts i have in the in the green sectors and the energy sectors and you know uh they used to promote oh we're gonna put the panels on your roof and those things and of course those wouldn't make sense unless you had a government rebate to make it make sense right but the costs that are coming down and those technologies things like uh you know power walls tesla power walls and things like this and my understanding is that when it comes to the fuel cells and i'm not professing to understand the technology but the hydrogen fuel cells and other fuel cell technologies things that convert even natural gas into massive power sources on localized generators are going to become uh things in the future it's going to start on bigger massive manufacturing plans people that can afford that infrastructure but as the costs come down and as canadian businesses are able to add solutions to that and there's going to be a lot of auxiliary uh products and technology that are going to be associated with that kind of energy storage at a local level or local production of energy or you know um having these big cell box i want them my understanding is that you know those big shipping containers some of those shipping containers have been converted into you know generators with technology inside of them and people who are just parking them in their parking lots and using them as backup power but you know as those technologies become better and better um people will start migrating to those things as well so it's not just going to be in vehicles it will be actually in factories as well yeah and that's a good there was a follow-on occur just before you say this there was a follow-on question uh which was transport is only a small part of hydrogen and hydrogen what about green steel green cement hydrogen for export uh so so that was a good point yeah so go ahead kurt yeah well i just it's i think we as canadians in in you know the citizenry and as well as the pro as enterprise have to get our heads around that carbon is going to be a cost and you're going to be able to trade it and sell it and buy it and it you know whether it's hydrogen or whatever form of technology whatever form factor green technology emerges as in the next 20 30 40 years like that is a key part of the calculus so when you're looking at lafarge you know big cement producer they're going to be you know french-based mne right there or i guess it's wholesome afar as they merged a few years ago so anyway still european based there they can't offshore their dirty behavior anymore it has to be validated if it's not validated they're going to be taxed they're on their carbon they don't clean it up they're going to be taxed or you know they have to move to another jurisdiction outside of europe to to to move all their head office or somewhere far away where they'll accept that but the corporates especially europe is ahead of us on this if you consider that the future right and you consider that north america will follow online but it appears that that's what we're trying to do as a society but this is key factor in this very key factor and hydrogen yeah it could come you know it could come a combustion form as mike said it but it also comes as a fuel cell where you just have a hydrogen essentially a hydrogen generation um system that essentially charges a mini battery that runs an electric motor on your car so like you have so many like so many variations now in in mobility uh that in powertrain that you know you have to be mindful of that whereas you were just selling internal combustion engine components before i'll tell you all the tier ones are looking for new things to make if they're tied in on i'll tell you that right now they're looking for new things medical devices farm equipment you know other stuff that is related to the metal forming and machining they they have done and some of them are just getting out of it all together and trying to find new ways to create ip and to protect it for the long haul because uh combustion engine has been the center of ip really for for for these oems and now it's going to be irrelevant so electric motors are pretty darn easy to make so that's not really a valid source of ips so you think about their positions from an ip perspective your customers they're going to be whittling away so how can you contribute to the formation of new ip well battery chemistry lightweighting new techniques new forms of production so yeah there's a lot of changes coming i think i don't really like from my contacts internationally i very few of them sense that there's going to be a u-turn people say no no we're not going to charge for carbon anymore like they feel that it's an economic necessity that somebody has to pay for this you know like there's a cost to it so someone and they're going to start with the big manufacturers first and then they're going to send it down the supply chain so if you can contribute to that as a supplier and you get your head around that and your strategy in place now you're going to be ahead of your competitors so again it might not be the cheapest and it might not have the best quality or maybe it would i guess because part of the quality is going to be considered clean it's going to be part of the quality matrix that's it and then you're going to help your customers save money um in their home jurisdiction and uh you're going to be part of the supply chain that that's that's what's happening a lot of the scouting i deal with that's their calculation ultimately is we have to we have to reject our supply chain and make sure it's clean because if it's not we're going to be paying the end there you go just to add quickly on that i won't profess to be an expert in all things hydrogen so my commentary was around the automotive sectors i know that best but with respect to green steel that is obviously a very big trend i understand hydrogen could obviously be a fuel source to help replace the gas fire or coal fire in the traditional steel making process on the cement side what i have heard more talk about myself lately has been cement as a carbon capture as opposed to how hydrogen would be deployed in that area so i do not know if they are complementary technologies or not but most discussion i have heard has been around cement for carbon capture but uh if uh jeff i believe if you're interested in hydrogen i do have a colleague at udc who is doing more work in that space and he might have some more insights for you yeah great thanks mike so there's another question here that came in the chat that i'll read out and it's yeah i'm thinking barry this this would be a good one to start you off with but we'll see here so here's the question um i haven't heard anybody talking about med tech so i'm wondering if the med tech sector is considered a growth market i'm thinking that small companies supplying the automotive or aeronautic industry could diversify and supply the med tech sector as well especially during off-peak periods because those sectors are cyclic the pros that they already have a high quality a good quality management system in place uh in order to get the required certification of iso 13 485. well medtech is uh very difficult on the procurement side and so just switching in and out um of medtech as a supplier is going to be very very difficult yes you can make the products but the actual procurement chains it's either very technical and clinical product that needs a lot of you know evaluation committees etc to go through or it's a commodity product which has long term procurement contracts in place so most of medtech in canada you know there'd be 1200 line items on a seven-year procurement um cycle um for commodities and the other the other stuff is you know it's it's just a very difficult um clinical evaluation process that you're going to go through so it's not something you just jump in and out of unless you have a pandemic and something you need a bunch of ventilators and you need some help it's very rare that that ever happens uh just to add a quick bit to that uh there has been a release in the last it was 12 months or so the government formed the better team excuse me business economic and trade recovery team it's a cross-government organization a panel of institutions that is dedicated to focusing on certain key strategic sectors one of which is medtech so it's definitely seen as a growth industry but like barry said there is a lot of complicating factors in the procurement process but uh like in most industries i firmly believe that if you come up with a new innovative product that the cream rises to the crop to the top and you will find a market it is then just the challenges of selling into the right part of that market if you are somebody who's going to sell direct for example it's consumer direct to hospital or you have to be integrated are you at the build phase of a hospital versus you know being able to be retrofit there's a lot of different factors that weigh in but it is definitely a priority for the government and the various financial crowns and agencies right all right so before we go into closing comments which i'm going to give you all a chance to to make some closing comments and then as well uh when you do so just share uh with our attendees you know if if you're comfortable with them reaching out to you how might they connect with you and to kurt's earlier point if there's programs you think they should look into sharing those so before i go into that closing comments and kind of uh you know connection points for yourself any other thoughts around some of the conversations we've had today other than closing comments that anybody want to share okay all right so moving into closing comments and again if you could just share kind of your final thoughts on this topic around international growth that we've talked about here today and then of course if anybody wants to connect with you or your if you if you do have an organization an agency etc how might they do so and if you're aware of any resources uh throw those in as well uh kurt are you okay uh starting us off there think so uh yeah i think i i pretty much summed up uh the best way to uh you know from our perspective what some of the touch points are in market what uh sort of network you need to develop we're all here together edc we have uh private sector mentors on this call uh i think it's been well described just to get a hold of us the best way is um well maybe we could put something in the chat um but we we we do have a twitter account and that's a good way to kind of hear about all our public uh facing events or initiatives we do do a lot of public open calls for things that might be of relevance to you that's one way to do it you can set up a my tcs account where you describe your your your business and your sector and you'll get more targeted messaging to your emails uh a lot of the best work that we do is confidential you know i i can't talk with a senior executive from bmw and go to a market and tweet and linkedin post all their problems because it just wouldn't get me very far in the relationship but what what i could do is meet these people with my colleagues in germany and obtain the problem statements what their pain points out and confidentially go out to my network and start to work it a bit and so that's where you might be best advised is if you think that you are ready for this journey and that you want to expand your market you're committed you got all the pieces in place and you want to take that plunge meet somebody like me or me myself if you're interested in auto and we'll start the conversation and then you get on our radar and then when these things come up we can quickly connect the dots so um yeah happy to be a point of contact to triage and uh happy to get to know anybody who wants to shoot me an email or give me a call after this conversation okay thanks kurt and if you want to go into chat and put in your email or domain uh whatever you're comfortable with that would be uh be great um luigi if any closing comments uh from yourself that you want to share with those uh today and if somebody wanted to reach out connect with you how would they best do so yeah thank you uh yeah it was a it was a great uh discussion and uh i think it's it's great because it's in the spirit of canadian business and and what kurt said about um reaching out to him and him opening channels other people i feel like since we started doing that as a company i think a lot of companies are scared to do that but ever since we started as a company hey reach out to uh business advisors in ontario reach out to regional business advisors reach out to you know people in the industry and i think that people in the canadian industry are very open to working with each other and they they don't feel like you know they're competing against each other i feel like that we all want to succeed together as a as a country and as a community and uh and and that's probably the best way going forward and that's why this panel is a good example of how that would occur as well and um you know i have had nothing but great experiences working with uh people in industry and and and even government agencies you know sometimes they get their uh their end of the uh negative talk but at the end of the day they're all here to help us succeed and they want to see us succeed and and just to uh it was something that barry was talking about which was interesting and working with other people how there was a pp product i think he was discussing that ended up being used in another application this happens to us all the time and a lot of times in our industry people don't get worried about oh you developed that thing as long as you're not selling it to one of our competitors or whatever we're like yeah you want to sell in a different industry go ahead that's fine so i think it's not to be scared to work with people and think oh you know we need ndas and this because you know everyone's very busy doing their own things and they don't have time to you know hijack someone's great idea they you know they want to work on their own ideas and if someone else has a great idea they probably will be more than open to helping them but other than that it's you know don't be scared to be open to network because nothing but positive things happens when you do that yeah great good yeah well well said luigi appreciate that uh barry uh any any closing comments and if somebody wanted to connect with you how did they best do so oh you're muted there barry oh your muting is not working okay all right well if you want to put your contact information barry in the chat that'll that'll work and uh mike i'll turn it over to you for uh for closing comments and i know you i know she already put your contact information if anybody wants to reach out to you directly great thanks a lot sean now and what i really encourage people is this conversation today was the first part of a conversation uh what is happening is always changing stay in touch with the people on this call stay in touch with your peers and other centers of influence it only do you favors going forward one piece of intelligence i like to leave with people as we talk about edc i've tried to avoid being pitchy at all but if you are thinking that you are not relevant for edc because you only sell within canada that might not be the case edc helps companies engage in export supply chains not just pure exporters so it might be worth having a conversation uh for companies in that vein but beyond that it's been a great pleasure talking with everybody i think there's been a lot of good useful information shared and i want to thank you sean for your hard work and pulling this all together yeah no thank you mike and thanks to everybody as our panelists uh obviously thanks to everybody who joined us and stuck around really appreciate that what we will do is we'll be sending out a copy of this recording to everybody who joined us and who could not join us we'll also include the contact information you see here in that email so you'll be able to reach out directly if you'd like uh and with that i want to thank everybody again for joining us here today on behalf of engine canada uh thanks to our panelists for committing your time to helping canadian manufacturers and wish everybody a safe uh and great rest of the day and a great summer ahead so thanks everybody thank you