Overseas Trade Marketing Plan 1: Company Analysis
A basic overseas trade-oriented marketing plan can be divided under the following headings: Company Analysis, Customer Analysis, Competitor Analysis, Environmental Factors, and Target Market. Each of these is described below.
Company Analysis
When considering overseas venturing, an initial consideration has to be the firm’s internal capabilities in terms of the competences required to enable and maintain successful overseas operations. Any marketing plan that involves penetration of an overseas market demands that the requisite resources are in order and, as much as is possible, all the relevant intelligence on the market has been gathered, analysed, and compared to the company’s current resources and deficiencies, with the latter ideally addressed. The company must also consider its overseas venturing in light of its broader international strategy. The venture must support and be in alignment with the company’s objectives and capability portfolio. Again, any areas of misalignment must be carefully evaluated. Deviations from the broader corporate strategy are tolerable if potential profits from the venture are high enough to compensate.
Other important factors include the extent of the company’s current operations inside that particular foreign market, the success or failure of those operations, and possibility of transferring lessons learnt to the new venture. The company must also consider the high costs and coordination complications that will be incurred by any decentralisation of command. Related to this is the question of whether or not the company has an in-place, functioning network of suppliers and market intelligence- gathering apparatus. If either are lacking, investing in their creation may be a sensible precautionary measure. If the company is already operating in the new territory, there might be options for building upon proven relationships with domestic partners. Due diligence and quality sampling must however precede the selection of unknown suppliers or known suppliers providing hitherto novel products. In short, all external threats and opportunities must be evaluated and areas of potential weakness focused upon. Management might also consider recruitment of specialists, especially when venturing into foreign markets where cultural differences are significant.