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f your information technology business has been growing for several years, it may be time to take the next step - a huge stride into another country. Why? The industry is ripening all over the globe. According to the American Electronics Association, U.S. IT exports totaled more than $165 billion last year.

Of that bonanza, Canada and Mexico were the largest individual buyers, accounting for about $25.9 billion and $18.3 billion, respectively. Japan purchased some $15 billion-worth, and the 15 members of the European Union spent a collective $40.6 billion.

Options on where to find good people and set up shop are also limitless. A number of experts point to Israel for the former and Scotland for the latter. Israel offers a lot of talent courtesy of defense department spinoffs and Russian immigrants. Scotland, meanwhile, has set up a "Silicon Glen" to attract high-tech businesses to its lush countryside.

Gigabyte-brained entrepreneurs seeking to tap foreign markets have many tools at their disposal. Steve Baloff, a general partner of Advanced Technology Ventures in Palo Alto, California, suggests keeping an eye on ever-improving Web-based architecture. Set hardware is another option for companies wanting to make an international name for themselves by developing a new technological concept.

Introducing technology to a foreign market is exactly the path Ofer Gneezy, president and CEO of Burlington, Massachusetts-based VIP Calling, decided to take when he and Gordon VanderBrug founded their company in 1996. VIP Calling created software that allows it to transfer calls to a public telephone network and offer substantially cheaper rates than traditional carriers. In 1997, the company began using that technology to route international long-distance calls over the Internet. Now it completes calls for major U.S. carriers and has established partnerships throughout Asia and Latin America, as well as offices in China, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, California, New Jersey and Texas. Gneezy's company handled more than 10 million minutes of calls in May alone.

"The hardest part of getting started was convincing companies our technology worked," says Gneezy, 41. "There was a question of whether Internet telephony could deliver the quality of the traditional voice connection. We proved it could."

But developing new technology is only one path to success. Another is to improve an existing mouse trap, which is what Stampede Technologies Inc. president and CEO Gordon Dorworth did when he created TurboGold for Lotus Notes. The 46 year-old has since created dial-up network software designed to provide faster access for laptop computers - and sends more than 25 percent of his products overseas.

If you think you're ready to head into a foreign market, proceed with caution. That way you can avoid common mistakes, such as rushing in before gaining enough experience at home, underestimating how much money it will take, and attempting to develop products for unfamiliar industries.

NEXT STEP

Information technology consultant Harry Sello says IT entrepreneurs going global should start the process with these steps:

1. "Find someone abroad with whom you can form a partnership," says Sello, president of Harry Sello & Associates, a Menlo Park, California, firm that helps business owners penetrate foreign markets. "Regardless of what type of partnership you create, find one that can add value to your product for the marketplace you're going into. That might mean a company that makes the product work in a particular language or within a country's engineering and cultural habits. That can also create tariff breaks by enabling you to enter that market as a local company rather than an American one."

2. Head overseas and attend the most specialized trade shows you can find. "Use them to hunt for partners and find out everything you can about your industry," says Sello.

3. When you go to a trade show, have your product ready for sale. "Trade shows have a much higher status [overseas] than they do in the United States," Sello says. "Europeans in particular expect you to come with a final product. They're suspicious of Americans who use the show as a barometer to gauge reaction to a product that's still being refined. Entrepreneurs abroad should be ready to make on-the-spot sales."