Hollister business owner connects with overseas companies
A year ago Sue Patenaude would have laughed if anyone told her
she would be doing business in India.
The president of Patenaude and Associates Inc., she was focused
on her work with local companies as an ergonomics consultant.
Patenaude has a background as a physical therapist.
Hollister business owner connects with overseas companies
A year ago Sue Patenaude would have laughed if anyone told her she would be doing business in India.
The president of Patenaude and Associates Inc., she was focused on her work with local companies as an ergonomics consultant. Patenaude has a background as a physical therapist.
The president of Patenaude and Associates Inc., she was focused on her work with local companies as an ergonomics consultant. Patenaude has a background as a physical therapist.
“I lived overseas, but I had not been to India,” Patenaude said. “I had not pursued international business.”
The Hollister resident, who works out of her home and an office in Morgan Hill, applied on a whim to attend a summit for United States businesses to connect with Indian businesses. She heard about the program through an e-mail from the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, of which she is a member. The council certifies businesses owned by women.
Soon she had her travel itinerary and her bags packed for a three-day conference in the east. She was among 250 business owners who paid to attend the conference with hopes of extending her business services there.
“It was funny how it happened,” Patenaude said. “I got an e-mail and [WBENC} sometimes has nice meetings so I clicked on it just to see what it said.”
The e-mail told about a business mission sponsored by the United States Department of Commerce. Patenaude applied, figuring that her ergonomics company would be looked over for businesses with more tangible products to export.
She received an invitation to the summit Nov. 29 – Dec. 1 and attended, where she enjoyed Indian cuisine and traveled to a few of the local sites in Mumbai.
Before she went, Patenaude still wondered how she would be able to consult on ergonomics with Indian companies from the United States.
“I imagined that I might need to come up with a whole new model,” Patenaude said.
But once she arrived in India and met with interested Indian companies in Mumbai, she realized her training tools and Web-based model would work well for an overseas partnership.
Patenaude is now talking with five of the business owners she met in Mumbai about working together to make the Indian work places more ergonomic. A challenge in India to preventing work place injuries is that the country does not have a system of worker’s compensation. Medical costs also vary drastically from region to region, and many residents have no medical insurance at all.
“Productivity is the focus,” Patenaude said, rather than medical benefits. “It’s not about lower medical costs. It’s about lowering absenteeism and employee turnover. It’s about quality of work.”
Another challenge to doing business is trying to provide her company’s services for a price that will be accepted in India.
“In the last few years, they’ve seen big productivity growth,” Patenaude said. “Their economy is just taking off.”
But many products and services sell for a much lower price than they would in the United States. In order to make a partnership with overseas companies viable, Patenaude needs to charge the same rate she does in Silicon Valley.
Her company does have an advantage in that Patenaude has some remote resources that allow her to work with companies from a distance. In working with India, Patenaude wants to use some of the remote resources her company has provided for others for five years. Companies can hire Patenaude and her staff for more complex ergonomic work, but for training staff on the proper way to do things she provides Web training and videos.
The ergonomic solutions provided by Patenaude and her staff focus on behavioral modification as well as equipment changes.
“As physical therapists, we had treated thousands of injuries,” Patenaude said. “We have a unique experience with unusually effective treatments.”
Patenaude sees the advantage of bringing new people into the field to exchange ideas.
“The United States suffered through a period of trial and error to find out what works and what doesn’t,” Patenaude said. “It’s expensive. But here they have a vision to start with so maybe they can skip over the hard part.”
Eventually, Patenaude would like to open an office in India where a locally trained consultant would be able to meet with companies.
