Participant SMEs and how to participate

The E-Channel Project offers the opportunity for small businesses and entrepreneurs to get access to experienced E Commerce consultants who will help and guide them through the process of new market evaluation and entry using digital information.   

Our remit is to provide advice on new market growth techniques and to provide help and advice on companies wishing to enter new markets successfully. 

First Steps

The project is very focused in that we are looking for 12 SMEs to work with extensively over a 12 month period starting on June 1st 2020.

We are looking for a wide range of companies both large and small and from a wide range of different backgrounds and sectors.  However you must fulfil the following criteria:

Your company must be located in one of the following UK or French counties:


Your company needs to employ less than 250 persons, have a turnover of less than 50 million and a balance sheet of less than 43 million. (EU)

As we are based in Plymouth and Vannes it is likely that many of ur companies will come from  Devon, Cornwall and Somerset in the UK and Brittany or Normandy in France.

We are ideally looking for companies that want to grow into new markets – this could be a market based in your own country or it could be market anywhere else in the world.  Our project is designed to support any new market activity. As we have project partners in France export to France will be a specific advantage to companies involved in the project.  

If you think you would like to participate please contact us by email or phone the Launchpad telephone number.

The different stages of particpation are:

  1. Attend an E-Channel webinar, event, face to face meeting or engage in some other way with us to hear about the project or learn about expansion into new markets
  2. Have a free consultation about the suitability, risks and opportunities that are currently present in your business for expanding into new markets using E Commerce
  3. Work closely with one of our consultants over three months on the methodology needed to expand into new markets and use our exclusive Data Management Control Platform (DMCP) to organise inventory, help identify opportunities and track business growth and profits
  4. Work independently until August 2021 using our DMCP while keeping in close contact with our consultant to either help our modelling or get further feedback on risks and opportunities presented while you are expanding.