Export-led growth is important for a number of reasons. At a macro-economic level, it can createprofit, allowing a country to balance its finances and manage its debt. Export-led growth can alsolead to higher productivity and job creation. At a micro-economic level, exports and export-ledgrowth lead to higher competitiveness and business growth. From an exporter’s perspective,however, participation in the global economy and export to new foreign markets bring with them thechallenge of acquiring the required knowledge of an unknown market.Relevant information gathered has to be subjected to analysis and interpretation before it can beapplied to strategic business decisions regarding the company and its market. This study proposesthat Competitive Intelligence (CI) be used as an instrument to determine the types of exportinformation that exporters require, as it focuses on exporters’ information requirements andenhances their competitiveness. The increasingly competitive business environment placesincreasing demands on Trade Promotion Organisations (TPOs) to make better use of resourcesavailable in order to tailor products and services to the needs of exporters. TPOs are amongst themain sources of information and export assistance for exporters. Other export information sourcesinclude publications and a variety of human sources. The assistance of TPOs can take the form ofvarious export-promotion instruments, such as market research, trade fairs and businessintroductions. TPOs face various challenges, including that of scarce resources. Therefore, suchresources must be utilised optimally and in order to achieve efficiency, Realistic ExportOpportunities (REOs) need to be prioritised.This study stresses the importance of export diversification and the export of manufactured goods.Export diversification brings its own challenges including the question of which products to promote for export. The application of a Decision Support Model developed by Cuyvers et al. (1995:173)for South Africa identified a number of REOs. Amongst these was the export of South Africanmanufacturedextruders to Tunisia. Against the background of the importance of export growth, thetypes of information that exporters use and the sources of such information were determined bymeans of a survey of extruder manufacturers, TPOs and users of extruders. With the exportpotential of extruders to Tunisia as an REO as focus, a market study was conducted using the casestudy research method.Results of the survey indicate that the only type of information that extruder manufacturers aspotential new exporters in South Africa seek on a continuous basis is competitor information,specifically pricing information. However, the findings indicate that this is not typically the type ofinformation supplied by TPOs in South Africa. Furthermore there is no evidence that extrudermanufacturers have processes in place to monitor markets and competitors, or to identify key typesof information. Concerning the case study, it was found that there is indeed a potential market forextruders in Tunisia and that the industries in which extruders are typically used are significant andgrowing. It was however also found that there are high trade barriers and high marketconcentration. Therefore, in terms of an export-promotion strategy for TPOs, an offensive exportpromotionstrategy is proposed.In terms of further research, this study points to a need for research of this nature to extend to thewider capital equipment industry. It is further recommended that market profiles of the markets thatshow the most potential for specific products produced and manufactured in South Africa asevident from the results of Rossouw, Steenkamp, Viviers and Cuyvers (2010) be compiled.
