Designing Trade Solutions for Local Businesses

Students explore what trade finance is, why it matters in global commerce, and how it connects to their local economy. Through a mix of short video clips, case examples, and peer discussion, they build foundational knowledge of the key instruments (Letters of Credit, Bank Guarantees, Documentary Collections) and their roles in reducing risk between international buyers and sellers.

Students identify and interview 2-3 local businesses or entrepreneurs engaged in international trade, asking about their current practices, pain points, and specific financing challenges. They record detailed notes on each business's context, products, trading partners, and existing solutions, building a rich profile to analyze.

Working in small teams, students analyze their interview data to identify the specific risks each business faces (payment delays, currency fluctuation, fraud, delivery uncertainty). They research and map appropriate trade finance instruments to each business's unique context, explaining why certain tools (LC, SBLC, Bank Guarantees, etc.) are better suited than others.

Each team designs a complete, step-by-step trade finance strategy for their chosen business, including which instruments to use, how to implement them, expected costs and benefits, and risk mitigation steps. They create a practical guide that the business could actually follow, written in clear language with diagrams or flowcharts.

Teams share their trade finance strategies with the international partner classroom through a structured asynchronous exchange (shared document with guiding questions or a recorded presentation). Partner students review the solutions, provide feedback on feasibility, cultural context, and alignment with global best practices, and suggest improvements based on their own local trading environments.

Teams incorporate feedback from the partner class to refine their strategies. They then collaborate with the partner class (asynchronously or via a scheduled call) to compare their different business contexts and create a shared, comparative guide showing how trade finance instruments adapt across different regions, industries, and risk profiles.

Each team presents their refined trade finance strategy and practical guide to the class and, if possible, to the actual business they interviewed. They reflect on how global perspectives from the partner class shaped their thinking, what they learned about international commerce, and how their solutions balance local business needs with global best practices.