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If you’re on the brink of deciding to take your Canadian business global, you’re making a good move. Aimia Inc. recently released the results of a study.  20% of the Canadian businesses are enthused, this in regards to the possibility of going global.  This is according to the study from Aimia Inc. A huge 90% of the businesses that have made the leap are extremely happy with the results.

Here is some advice Canadian business owners who are considering going global will want to consider.

Don’t Get Worked Up About the Prospect

One of the main reasons so many Canadian business owners are hesitant about making the leap and going global. Hence, there are issues concerning the expansion and that’s the main cause of worry. Yes, there are going to be some challenges. However, most business owners find that as long as they approach going global with a calm and collected attitude. It’s a fairly smooth process. The business owners who have successfully taken their company global. They advise handling it exactly the same way you would handle a domestic expansion.

Take Advantage of Networking Opportunities

Connected to your industry, making solid connections with international business leaders. These are the solution to counter challenges that arise when taking your business globally. It’s okay to ask them to serve as a kind of mentor. Not only will they help you deal with the red tape and other issues you’ll encounter, but they’ll also help you reach out to other important contacts.

In addition to connecting with a few mentors, do some heavy research on your competitors who have gone international. Explore the methods they used to determine why some gained a great deal of success on the global market while others struggled with the transition.

Have a Communication System in Place

Communication has always been a challenge for Canadian businesses that have gone global. It’s much harder to go to an office or plant to manage a problem when that office/plant is on the opposite side of the world. Luckily, technology has provided some great global communications program that eliminates many of the headaches business owners who took the global plunge in years past encounter. Today’s communication apps provide global businesses with an opportunity to use text/audio messages, don’t break down when cellular signals fail, and enable you to communicate directly with several people in different parts of the world at the same time.

Good apps for global business communication include:

•  Watsapp
•  WhatsApp video
•  Slack
•  Skype
•  WeChat
•  Telegram
•  Line
•  Google Hangouts

To smartphone and tablets, all the apps can be downloaded directly.

Diligently Research Global Market Trends

Before committing yourself to the global market, sit down, and do extensive research about how your product will be received on the global market. This is also the time to explore is certain countries have regulations in place that would require you to revamp your product before selling it there. One example of this is a business that sells sauces. When they broke into the global market they learned the only way they could market their product in one country was by completely changing the product’s packaging. Knowing the restrictions in advance means deciding not to market in that particular country or revamping your product.

Check to See if NAFTA Restrictions Impact Your Industry

There have been some big changes in NAFT during the past year with more changes anticipated after Mexico’s presidential election. While many smaller Canadian business industries won’t be impacted by the new trade restrictions, it’s still a good idea to look at current and predicted future restrictions and determine if they create new hurdles for your Canadian business if you decide to take it global.

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Federal and provincial governments to work on a plan to have Canada eventually produce no waste plastic at all

Canada’s environment ministers want to cut in half the amount of garbage this country produces, in a little over two decades.

By 2030, they want to reduce the total amount of waste Canada throws out by 30 per cent; by 2040, they want to cut the quantity by 50 per cent. And as part of a national strategy to curb plastic pollution in particular, Ottawa and the provinces unanimously agreed to work on a plan to have Canada produce no waste plastic at all.

Much tthe garbage Canadians send to landfills and incinerators, after recycling and composting and all the other forms of diversion, is plastic.

“Plastic pollution, as we all know is a major challenge for the health of our oceans, our lakes and our rivers,” said federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, speaking to reporters after the two-hour teleconference with her provincial counterparts.

The meeting was supposed to be held face to face in Ottawa but was downgraded first to a video conference and later a conference call. Federal officials cited scheduling conflicts that kept some ministers from being there in person; behind the scenes, the tension between Ottawa and some provinces over carbon pricing is said to be a factor.

McKenna said the focus of the meeting was plastics, not climate change, and said she was glad that the ministers could put other differences aside to find agreement on something else.

“I was just really pleased to see today that provinces, despite where there may be other areas where we don’t necessarily agree, that we can all agree that plastics is a huge problem,” she said.

Canada is trying to be a leader in curbing humanity’s plastics addiction. At the last G7 leaders’ summit it convinced five of the seven biggest developed economies in the world to sign a plastics charter, pledging that by 2040 all plastic produced in those countries will be reused, recycled or burned to produce energy. (The United States and Japan stayed out.)

The proliferation of single-use plastic packaging like water bottles, drinking straws and food wrapping is sending massive amounts of plastic to landfills. More blows into waterways and drifts to the sea. Giant reefs of plastic are showing up in the oceans and fish and sea mammals are eating plastic objects thinking they’re food.

Earlier this week, a sperm whale washed up dead in Indonesia and was found to have six kilograms of plastic waste in its stomach, including 115 plastic cups, a plastic grocery bag full of string and two flip-flops. What killed the whale is unknown because it was badly decomposed.

The lack of proper waste management in developing nations is behind much of the plastic that ends up in the oceans but Canadians are not great at recycling despite the curbside recycling systems in most cities. Only about 10 per cent of the plastic Canadians buy gets recycled.

In 2014, the average Canadian threw away 706 kilograms of garbage.

A final national plastics strategy is still in the works but the ministers agreed to require that plastic products sold here be easier to reuse or recycle, and to introduce producer-responsibility systems to make the companies that sell products wrapped in plastic more responsible for ensuring they get recycled.

McKenna said Canada is slightly above average when it comes to recycling but is nowhere near good enough.

“The reality is we have a ton of work to do,” she said.

Environment groups think this agreement is not the ton of work that is needed.

“How many more whales full of single-use plastic trash need to wash up on shores around the world before our minister of the environment and climate change takes strong action to help curb the excessive production of throwaway plastic?” said Sarah King, head of an oceans and plastics campaign for Greenpeace Canada.

King wants Canada to follow Europe’s footsteps and ban certain plastics entirely. The United Kingdom is banning plastic straws and stir-sticks, while France is soon banning plastic plates and utensils that can’t be composted.