"Invite a thousand people in industry and education in a major US city to a seminar on using analytical instrument techniques for environmental analysis," says Joe Pinto, "and we'd get a respectable showing of 100 people."

Offer the same seminar in India or in China, and "we'd get about 500 people."

Joe Pinto

Joe Pinto is Strategic Program manager for the Hewlett-Packard Chemical Analysis Group's new International Business Development Initiative. Translated, that means he's helping technology-hungry nations bootstrap themselves into the next century through the acquisition of state-of-the-art instrumentation and expertise tailored to their specific needs. HP's innovative approach is bringing clients and banks together to identify solutions before project specifications are finalized.

Created in 1997 to help HP interact more effectively with development banks in Asia, Latin America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, this Chemical Analysis Group (CAG) program has already won four World Bank contracts totaling more than $1.34 million to improve the quality of life in developing countries.

Joe Pinto determines the strategy for this HP initiative. After 25 years of sales management experience with CAG, Pinto says, "It's not like I'm outside my comfort zone."

Intensive training in international banking procedures has given this CAG manager fresh insights into public sector procedures. Instead of waiting for offerings on already developed contracts, Pinto's team is moving to provide input in advance of project specifications.

In India, for example, Pinto arranged for two state clients interested in environmental technology to tour a lab humming with HP equipment. With them was the clients' consultant who was being paid to spec the required new devices.

Diane Willkins

"The name of the game is get in front of the tender," explains HP's international financial consultant, Diane Willkens. Willkens, president of Development Finance International Inc., is on a first-name basis with World Bank task managers who may lack technical expertise in the loan projects they are shaping. So DFI and HP CAG are bringing in experts to address bank specialists on topics as esoteric as "Fundamentals of Environmental Testing, Dioxin Analysis."

As Willkins explains, "if HP Chemical Analysis Group can work hand-in-hand with lending institutions to help them understand commercial solutions to their clients' problems, the banks can advise countries on smarter investments and more effective use of their loans."

HP Chemical Analysis Group's international development team has to be clear-eyed and quick on their feet. "There are only five of us in the world," Pinto points out. Located in Asia, Europe and the Americas, the closely-linked members manage deals "like a three-dimensional board game," sometimes matching end-users with funding sources and consultants on three continents.

One of those countries is China, where HP has been operating for more than a decade. Last December, two Asian Development Bank-funded contracts worth $500,000 were awarded to HP Chemical Analysis Group by China's State Commission of Education for gas chromatographs, PCs and mass spectrometers to train teachers in 15 provinces on how to instruct post-secondary "middle school" students on using analytical instruments.

HP technology is proving crucial to other emerging economies. Last June, the Ministry of Agriculture in the small Eastern European nation of Moldova awarded CAG a $520,000 World Bank-sponsored contract for analytical instruments and sample-handling devices to improve the quality of Moldovan wine. The goal is to meet worldwide food and beverage import standards.

Another $340,000 contract will help Mexico meet an Integrated Border Environment Plan required for NAFTA implementation. Using HP instrumentation, some 15 sub-projects funded by the World Bank will boost air quality, water treatment and sanitation in a half-dozen industrial zones bordering the United States.

"Our program is not going to go into a country and fix its ills," Pinto emphasizes. "It's going to look at some key sectors and find a solution to improve education or improve the environment—probably in a small way—by ensuring the quality of water in a town or village, or by measuring pesticides to make sure that in achieving self-sufficiency, they don't poison their food supply."

Besides advising countries on specifications for contracts to be awarded to the lowest bidder, HP's international business initiative is taking the next step by introducing CAG's customers to public or private financing.

Government and private clients in emerging countries around the world are working on environmental and industrial projects," Pinto relates. "If we can help them define the project and get the necessary approvals, we can get customer financing at low rates. While going through the World Bank may take three to five years, HP can put together a consortium and actually help develop the specifications and financing for the project in a much shorter period of time.

And because there's no low bidder, Pinto adds, "The customer gets what they want, and what they need."