We are driven by the belief that having current, fact-based knowledge about one's customers, markets, and competitors is essential to the developments of successful business development strategies anywhere in the world.
With over forty years of combined international experience in strategic marketing, marketing research, sales and business development we are uniquely positioned to help you achieve your business growth objectives and superior relationships with existing and potential customers, at considerable time and cost savings to you.
MISSION AND VALUES
To make a positive, lasting difference in our clients’ business performance by offering high-value, cost-effective marketing services, internationally, in an independent, objective, and ethical manner.
We strive to continuously conduct all business with the highest ethical and professional standards. We instill a culture of uncompromising commitment to exceeding our clients’ expectations, thus allowing for significant improvements to their organizational performance in all markets in which they operate.
HISTORY
The beginnings of our company go back to 1996, when Jan Zalud, a Commerce Undergraduate from the University of Manitoba, on an exchange program in Montpellier, France, went to Paris to meet with the then Vice-President of Marketing of a rapidly growing manufacturer of innovative skylights from California. That first meeting led to the first international market development project for Jan of successfully introducing tubular skylights to the Czech construction market. It also marked his strong passion for helping organizations develop new, particularly international, markets.
After a number of other export market development projects helping Czech exporters to sell their products in Canada and the US, Jan decided to officially register his business, Jan Zalud & Associates International, Inc., in 2000.
Jan Zalud & Associates International, Inc. was formed to focus exclusively on identifying and developing export market opportunities in Canada for Czech Republic exporters. Our early work was heavily sales-oriented, with hundreds of hours spent on creating awareness for given products through prospecting, meeting with potential buyers, and facilitating whatever communications were required between Czech suppliers and Canadian distributors, or vice versa. The more we worked with various exporters, however, the more we became aware of a common constraint shared by all: A lack of sufficient understanding of their markets of interest, as well as the business climate within them.
Since 2003, our focus has been largely international research-based, providing our business clients with in-depth insights into forces that impact their products, markets, and competitiveness so that they can make well-informed choices with strong, positive impacts on performance.
In spite of our relatively young history, our partnership-based business model brings over 40 years of combined strategic marketing, market research, and export market development experience to every project.
GEOGRAPHIC AREAS
- Canada
- United States
- European Union
PROFILES
Jan Zalud
Our Company Founder and President, Mr. Jan Zalud, brings considerable knowledge and professional experience in general business management, marketing research, strategic marketing, and export market development across a wide range of industries.
Jan started his career in marketing as a Research Assistant for his former marketing professor to develop a new market development strategy for a Winnipeg-based railroad components manufacturer. He then helped Solatube International, a U.S. skylight manufacturer, to set up a distribution system in the Czech Republic. At about the same time, he was selected to participate in the development and implementation of a new communication strategy for a new bank branch of La Société Bordelaise, a regional bank in Montpellier, France.
Jan next worked as a Sales Consultant for a directory advertising supplier in Prague, Czech Republic (CR). There, he single-handedly revived two of the company’s key target markets: Prague Embassies and High Commissions, and the CR Department of Foreign Affairs & International Trade (DFAIT). Jan’s business acumen and the instinctive ability to create strong business relations at the highest levels resulted in his selling the company’s directory products to approximately 40 Embassies and 20 High Commissions in just three months, and in helping to secure an exclusive supplier agreement with the CR’s DFAIT.
He also worked as a Living Benefits Specialist for Winnipeg’s Great-West Life Assurance Company and Investors Group, where he was responsible for training new financial services advisors in the skills of marketing and selling the highly technical living benefits insurance.
Today, he continues to apply his hands-on approach to business by being personally involved in many of the company’s research and market development projects.
Jan holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honors) degree with an International Business Major, and an MBA (with Distinction) from the I.H. Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Robert (Watson) Laing
Our European Associate is Robert Laing, a partner in Watson Laing Marketing, a UK company formed in 1979.
His background is extremely broad in both business and academic terms.
He has over 30 years of international business experience in home and export sales, marketing, manufacturing, distribution, and trade show organization. Throughout his career, Watson developed a strong track record of leading businesses in a wide range of industries to increased profitability by growing and penetrating new domestic and foreign export markets.
He served a commercial apprenticeship in the Scottish heavy textile industry and designed/marketed/sold such products throughout the UK.
He worked for Hawker Siddeley in satellite design. In addition to carrying out design engineering work on satellites and launch vehicles, he developed unique processes in parametric cost estimating. During this period he traveled extensively on business throughout Europe, Canada and the United States. He was later promoted to the position of Worldwide Sales and Marketing Manager, Electro-Optics. He spent the next six years selling Hawker Siddeley products to civil and defense customers around the World. He sold to 22 countries. For a further period he was Marketing Manager for the Mediterranean Territory, for Hawker Siddeley Dynamics.
Robert next worked for British Aerospace as Sales Manager, Precision Products Group, traveling extensively and developing business relations in developed and less-developed countries. He was subsequently appointed Marketing Manager North America for British Aerospace Dynamics Group, where he gained further specialized experience in doing business in the U.S. and Canada.
He was also appointed by the Premier of Manitoba to be Agent for the Canadian Province of Manitoba in the U.K. and Ireland, and has been closely involved with most of the London Embassies and High Commissions.
- UK Sales Manager, Spraying Systems Company, Wheaton, Illinois
- Sales Manager, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), MacDonald Dettwiler Associates of Vancouver
- General Manager, MacDonald Dettwiler Associates, for the company’s U.K. Subsidiary he opened
- Principal, Watson Laing Marketing, providing strategic marketing services throughout the World
He is an expert on trade show selection, organization, and participation, having spent an astonishing two years of his life in attendance at trade shows of all types in the UK and abroad. He believes that most companies fail to extract the true potential of such shows.
Robert holds an honors degree in Physics from the University of St Andrews in the United Kingdom, and a college degree in Cost Accountancy.
