Global business 101: lessons from three Indiana companies honored by the U.S. Department of Commerce for exporting success.

• Author: Kaelble, Steve
• Position: Da-Lite Screen Company Inc., Anchor Industries Inc. and George F. Cram Company Inc. - Cover Story

Succeeding in business isn't easy, but it's a real trick when seller and buyer are separated by thousands of miles and vastly different languages and cultures.

That's why the U.S. Department of Commerce's Export Assistance Center, which provides a variety of services to American companies doing business abroad, likes to honor its star exporters. The governmental agency issues Export Achievement Certificates to firms that it determines are tackling the world in an exceptionally creative and successful manner, companies that have signed up for U.S. Department of Commerce services and met or exceeded global-trade goals.

Three Indiana companies have caught the attention of the Export Assistance Center's Indiana office this year. Earning Export Achievement Certificates are projection screen manufacturer Da-Lite Screen Co. of Warsaw, map and globe maker George F. Cram Co. of Indianapolis and Evansville's Anchor Industries which makes party tents and other portable structures.

SCREENING FOREIGN MARKETS

The developing world is a developing market for Da-Lite Screen Co. of Warsaw. The company makes projection screens and other audiovisual support equipment, and has found that opportunity knocks especially loudly in places where classrooms are being built or upgraded at a rapid pace. "There are 15 million classrooms in China without audiovisual support," notes chairman and CEO Richard Lundin. That translates into 15 million potential places to install a Da-Lite screen. But the company hasn't always thought on such a grand and global scale.

Da-Lite produced its first projection screens in the basement of a small Chicago building in 1909 and at first kept its business local, limited to customers in the Chicago area. But through the years the company developed a reputation for quality screens and began to add customers in other states. By the 1950s, Da-Lite was in the market for a larger facility, and in 1957 picked Warsaw for a new headquarters and manufacturing facility.

Growth continued at an orderly pace, but it took adversity to inspire Da-Lite to really approach exporting in a big way. It was the early '90s, and the economy was beginning to sputter. "It started with the recession,' Lundin says. As domestic sales slowed, Da-Lite began to look for countries with the right combination of budgetary capability and political will to build their educational systems.

Before long the company had plugged into markets across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. As international sales grew, Da-Lite acquired competitors in France and the Netherlands. Manufacturing now takes place at those sites, at facilities Da-Lite acquired in Ohio, Kansas and California, and at the home plant in Warsaw.

Today, about a quarter of the revenues from Da-Lite's U.S. operations are attributable to exports. Count the European operations, and sales in other countries add up to about 40 percent of Da-Lite's overall business, which takes it to nearly 125 countries.

Conquering the world took plenty of effort, and also lots of assistance from outside the company. "We've not been afraid to ask for help," Lundin says. "It's there and it's free." Among other things, Da-Lite has worked extensively with the Indianapolis Export Assistance Center of the U.S. Department of Commerce, which led to that agency's decision to present Da-Lite with an Export Achievement Certificate this month.

Lundin is a fan of the Export Assistance Center's Gold Key program, which helps companies identify potential markets and hook up with distributors and other potential partners in those foreign destinations. He also points to the assistance and advice from the International Trade Division of the Indiana Department of Commerce...