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Dorian Drake International is an innovative leader in the field of export management, providing manufacturers with a full-service alternative to staffing and managing their own export department. The firm's mission is to build world-class international distribution for leading manufacturers in select industries.
Dorian Drake's multi-lingual sales and marketing professionals dock their laptops at the firm's headquarters in White Plains, N.Y.,or at regional offices in Plantation, Florida; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Mexico City, Mexico; Sofia, Bulgaria; Hong Kong; Shanghai or Zhuhai, China. Each professional is assigned to one of the firm's four stand-alone product groups: Automotive, Foodservice, Hardware/ Lawn & Garden or Industrial & Environmental. Manufacturers who retain Dorian Drake benefit three ways: Its factory-trained sales force and established distribution network provides manufacturers with an immediate market presence that otherwise would take years to build. Dorian Drake takes title and assumes the foreign credit risk, eliminating the high cost of managing complex international credit and collections. The firm bears all fixed costs associated with an export operation, including inside and outside staff, international travel and communications. Please click here for a brief explanation of an export agreement.

Dorian Drake's clients draw on any number of key corporate capabilities:

Field Sales
Dorian Drake provides clients with consistently aggressive sales coverage in every major world market. In the field, sales executives provide product training, conduct joint customer calls and consult customers on how best to promote a product line in their local market.

Services Direct Marketing
The firm uses its Web site and an extensive customer database to capture and pursue sales leads and to maintain a steady stream of communication with existing accounts. The Web site, www.doriandrake.com, is uniquely designed to provide customers with current product information, valuable sales and marketing tools, hyperlinks to client sites and up-to-date order information.

Strategic Planning
Dorian Drake collaborates with its clients to set quotas, build programs and map strategic plans consistent with each manufacturer's goals and expectations. This approach provides a client with an intimate knowledge of customers, competition and market trend.

Export Foreign Credit and Collections
Today, more than ever before, manufacturers must extend credit in high-risk, emerging markets in order to compete. Dorian Drake has the financial savvy to evaluate foreign credit risks and the financial strength to extend credit while paying its manufacturer clients within terms.

Export Traffic and Logistics
The firm partners with leading global freight forwarders
to provide customers with an array of critical services designed to ensure timely and accurate delivery, documentation and customs clearance.

International Customer Service
Dorian Drake assigns an experienced, cross-culturally skilled customer service professional to every international account to ensure customers quick response to their inquiries. The firm's deep pool of talented customer service professionals enables the outside sales force to maintain an aggressive travel schedule without compromising service levels.

After more than thirty years in the business, Edward Dorian Sr. has learned a few things about how to run a successful export management company. The chairman and senior managing partner of Dorian Drake International continues to champion today the same principles that have served him well throughout his career.

He believes first and foremost that an exporter must offer a manufacturer continually aggressive field sales coverage. "A manufacturer can measure an exporter's effectiveness by the amount of time their people spend in the field meeting with customers," he says. "We put a lot of emphasis on getting our people out into the marketplace."

Ed Dorian Sr. has long advocated the importance of sharing with the firm's manufacturer clients all information regarding customers, pricing, margins and competition. "Sharing information helps us win the trust of our clients," he says, "and trust is the foundation of any long-term relationship."

Now in his fifteenth year as president, Edward Dorian Jr. has embraced his father's commitment to building strong, long-term relationships with the firm's manufacturer clients.

"We want our clients to feel like we are an extension of their organization," Ed Dorian Jr. notes. "Part of that process is benchmarking our performance for our clients and delivering results."

The Dorians also believe in regularly re-investing profits. Investments include creation of an in-house marketing department, implementation of an innovative Web site, www.doriandrake.com, continued investments on technology and an IT Department.

"We want to be the best export management company in the business." says Ed Dorian Jr. "Being the best means we set the standard by which all other export management companies are judged."



Dorian Drake's four stand-alone product groups share common resources – marketing, credit and collections, information technology – while maintaining a sharp industry focus. For more information, click on the icons below:



GDMP™ Dorian Drake works with its manufacturer clients to design a Global Distribution Management Program, or GDMP™, specific to each product line. Key program components follow. Sales and Service Presentations. Dorian Drake produces electronic and hardcopy product presentations designed for use by Dorian Drake sales executives and their customers for staff training and customer presentations. Program Pricing. Program pricing offers resellers preferred pricing based either on their distribution function, annual volume commitment or both. Co-op Promotional Programs. Dorian Drake's easy-to-budget co-op promotional program requires proof of expense for any co-op credit, whether it be for foreign-language literature, local media advertising, a trade show or sales conferences. Merchandising Materials. Point-of-sale marketing, advertising and sales aids are listed and presented in a "Fax Ready " order form. Warranty Service. In export marketing, confusion surrounding warranty coverage often is a source of customer discontent. As part of a GDMP™, Dorian Drake clarifies the manufacturer's export warranty policy and explains to distributors, where applicable, a simple, concise method for presenting a claim. Forecasting and Inventory Management. Dorian Drake employs inventory control spreadsheets to monitor distributor stock levels and help distributors forecast future requirements. Distributor Sales Agreements. Dorian Drake secures a distributor's annual forecast and volume commitment and spells out its corresponding commitments to the distributor in an annual distributor sales agreement. The document serves as a valuable tool for forecasting, budgeting and performance management.

"Dorian Drake established the kind of international distribution we envisioned in one tenth the time it would have taken us to do it ourselves."
—Dan McCann,
Director of Sales and Marketing, ECCO, Manufacturer of Automotive Warning Lighting and Reverse Alarms

"Dorian Drake's people can demonstrate and service any of our products. They also know how to find the type of distributor ideally suited to sell and service our line."
—Ross Johnson,
Marketing Manager, Bear Cat Products, Manufacturer of Commercial and Consumer Wood Chippers and Shredders

"We experimented with several international strategies before deciding seven years ago to go with Dorian Drake…..they've helped us achieve steady growth in our international sales."
—John Kinel,
VP Marketing, Spencer Turbine, Manufacturer of Industrial Blowers and Central Vacuum Systems

"Dorian Drake's China office staff is superior to any manufacturer-direct team with whom I have come in contact."
—Li Min,
Managing Partner, Greenman Company, Distributor of Outdoor Power Equipment, China

"We rely on Dorian Drake to navigate our sales effort though some of the world's most difficult markets. Year after year, they deliver results."
—Jim Todd,
President, Traulsen & Co., Manufacturer of Commercial Refrigeration

Dorian Drake's first fifty years mirrored the evolution of U.S. international trade during the second half of the twentieth century.

The firm was founded in New York City in 1947 by a British bank hoping to capitalize on the new global demand for manufactured goods following the rupture in trade caused by World War II. Known then as Drake America Corporation, the company grew steadily during the 1950s and 1960s as the pace of global

trade accelerated. Buoyed by continued growth and backed by an expanded roster of investors, Drake America acquired several other export management companies during the 1970s and reached a then all-time sales peak in 1979.

Company history
The company's fortunes turned during the early 1980s, as the U.S. dollar's value reached historic heights. After five years of declining revenues and mounting losses, Drake America was sold in 1985.

The new owners were the principals of another export management company, Dorian International, whose founding partner, Edward Dorian, Sr., had served as Drake's president from 1967 to 1974.

Ed Dorian Sr. and his son, Edward, Jr, consolidated the two companies and restored Drake to profitability by 1987.

Taking full advantage of the emerging export opportunities in Asia and Latin America, the firm grew sales more than four-fold during the ensuing ten years, though saw some of those gains reversed during the Asian currency crisis of the late 1990s.

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the company foresees another era of rapid growth fueled by Asia's recovery and the continued emergence of other major global markets.

A chronology of key dates follows:

1947
Kleinwort Benson, a British merchant bank, acquires Rogers International, a New York-based exporter of motorcycles, tires and tubes, diesel engines and various other automotive and industrial products. The bank renames the firm Drake America Corporation. During the next thirty years, several other British and U.S. banks acquire, then sell, shares in the firm.

1966
Drake is honored with the Presidential "E" award for its success building export distribution for Armstrong Tires.

1967
Edward Dorian, Sr. is elected president of Drake America Corporation. During his seven-year tenure, he achieves record growth and profitability for Drake America and successfully establishes Export Credit Corporation, an affiliate export finance company. He leaves in 1974 to form Creditcorp International.

1977
Drake America acquires X-M World Trade, a major U.S. exporter of hardware and lawn and garden products.

1980
Edward Dorian, Sr. establishes Dorian International, Inc., in White Plains, N.Y., as an export management company representing manufacturers in the foodservice equipment industry. The firm's first line is Cleveland Range.

1985
Dorian International acquires Drake America from the Midland Bank of England. Edward Dorian, Sr., is elected chairman and CEO. Edward Dorian, Jr., is elected president and COO. The company chooses to maintain Drake and Dorian as separate divisions and corporate identities.

1996
The firm unifies its corporate identity as Dorian Drake International, Inc.