Every company’s desire is to expand and have as much impact in the market as possible. American market for nearly any commodity is known to be huge. However, it isn’t large enough for some entrepreneurs who are growth minded and view the rest of the world as their oyster. There are plenty of opportunities in seeking growth internationally as an exporter, importer or establishing a branch in another country. There are advantages to a business that successfully grows globally or expands its tentacles to different countries. These advantages include extending sales life of existing goods and services through access to new market and reducing over dependence on local market. Another advantage is overcoming challenges of market fluctuations occasioned by seasonal demand and cycles through tapping international markets that have countercyclical fluctuations. Besides, a company that chooses a market in a different country can exploit corporate know-how and technology as well as learning to compete against foreign based companies and taking the battle to the competition doorstep. Therefore, companies choose different international approaches or strategies that guide their efforts as they cross borders to various countries. Some of the approaches can be successful in establishing their conglomerate while others could fail.
Ideally, the overriding reason why companies exploit markets in different countries is to improve potential for growth and expansion. There are as many opportunities internationally including less-competitive and fast-growing markets. For instance, if you spin the globe, it becomes highly possible to find opportunity for selling something somewhere. However, unearthing where the opportunity is involves more work and approaches. The purpose of this paper is to examine and disclose various approaches chosen by companies in different countries to access and stamp authority in the international market. In diagnosing this subject, various literature works will be reviewed from different sources as questions that guide the research are defined. Next, the methodology and methods of data collection that fit this particular paradigm are disclosed and discussed. There is also the timetable to be followed in ensuring this dissertation is fully delivered in time and finally outlining the references for the research work. The main question to be answered in this paper is how can a company choose the best approach for different countries? This question will be testing the following hypothesis; if a company does preliminary findings and makes the best choice of approach for different countries, it will be less costly and take short period to penetrate the new market. However, there are other questions that may not be answered directly but will guide this research. The supplementary questions are captured in the preliminary review of the literature.
Preliminary Review of the Literature
According to Cavusgil and Knight (2015), growing a business to be competitive enough in the local and global market is a risky venture. However, companies have always taken the risk to pursue their aspirations of establishing in foreign land. There are questions that companies need to consider as they make a decision on the approach to choose so as to establish in a different country or global market. These questions include; “will the product sell well in the targeted culture?” “Is your target market familiar with your product or service?” “Do you feel comfortable in that country?” And finally “What is the infrastructure like?” (Quirke 2017, p.44). Although there are fundamental issues to consider in penetrating international market these researchers have not identified best approach companies can choose for different countries. Ideally, this is the gap this research work will be trying to fill.
Thinking of market research can assist companies come up with the best strategy or approach that will significantly help in penetrating a certain market in a different country (Rothaermel 2015, p.19). For instance, American goods and services are known to be embraced overseas but when potential customers in a foreign country are lactose-intolerant, a company dealing with food and beverages would want to distance itself from opening a food joint that sells pizza, cheese or such fat foods only. According to De Mooij (2018), if a foreign market is not familiar with certain product or service, a company that wants to go global must be prepared to invest money and time in education for the consumers. However, such investment is never in vain since if the company becomes the first to introduce an exciting and new concept "the product then becomes synonymous with your company name or chain," (De Mooij 2018, p.9). Consequently, this turns out to be an advantage in penetrating the market and establishing a niche and turns to a competitive advantage for the new company.
According to Grant (2016), a company’s choice of approach in a different country must consider the language and culture in that part of the world. Most companies especially those operating chains of installations will probably have current staff live in the new country temporarily during the early stages to operate the business. This will require knowledge of the local culture and languages to operate successfully. Moreover, infrastructure in a different country is paramount as company chooses the approach to apply. For instance, if staff are used to western-style support and accommodation, it’s important to establish if such facilities are available (Chao Hsu and Haas 2014, p.345). The state of the roads in the country is crucial as well as guarantee for constant supplies for the business to be established.
Making a choice to venture in a different country for a company carries a heavy load. Ravenhill (2017) argues this challenges range from currency fluctuations to chasing very many opportunities. Ideally, international expansion game has myriad of threats that business people operating only domestically never see. Besides, going global can present a good opportunity for growth but only when a company chooses the right approach and avoids pitfalls.
According to De Loecker and Goldberg (2014), some mistakes should be avoided for a company to choose the right approach in the global market. Failing to plan on the strategy or approach is planning to fail in a different country. Most small companies overlook planning and find themselves in pitfalls that take more time to extract from. Therefore, the recommendation is to do it right first time and avoid any mistakes that may be costly. Another mistake is ‘chasing inquiries the world over’ (Frynas, Child and Tarba 2017, p.559). Ideally, a good approach should consider few choices that are viable since it’s impractical to market products everywhere. Making choice on the approach for a different country requires a great deal of patience (Ravenhill 2017, p.89). Some other mistakes include making assumptions for example if it has worked in America, it has to work everywhere and also assuming the local language such as English will be the mode of communication elsewhere. Ideally, all the reviewed literature in this section did comprehensive work in covering the topic of international market and company expansion to different countries. However, they have not been able to highlight and advice on the approaches that companies can choose in different countries which is a gap that this research is being undertaken to bridge.
Methodology
This research paper will be comprehensive as it tries to fill the gaps that previous work by other researchers has not been able to close in the past. However, some assumptions will be made in order to adequately collect and analyze available data especially on how this research would be conducted and researcher’s role. For this reason, qualitative research methods will be utilized for data collection. The two most basic research approaches include positivism and interpretivism. Positivist uses scientific quantitative methods while interpretivists prefer utilizing qualitative humanistic methods (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault 2015, p.13). For this reason, interpretivism has been identified as the research approach that will offer the best results considering this research work doesn’t require numerical data but information on what companies have found as the best approach when entering foreign markets.
Different qualitative research methods will be used to collect data for this particular research. However, these methods will be confined to in-depth interviews, content analysis and case study analysis. The main justification for these specific methods of data collection is that qualitative methods are usually more descriptive and inferences are drawn easily from acquired data. For instance, one-on-one interview will offer information from companies that have been able to successfully establish themselves in foreign countries both big and small. Interviews will also offer insight into approaches and strategies the companies have used to realize success (Smith 2015, p.20). For this reason, time constraint will not allow engaging of many companies and therefore for interviews only three companies will be identified for this research. Moreover, content analysis and case studies reveal success and failed scenarios on the international market and thus function as critical sources of information.
Consequently, data analysis for qualitative data collected in this research will involve identification of some common patterns within responses from interviews and analyzing them critically in order to attain the research objectives and aims. This is because most of this data will not be numeric and won’t require running in a system or software such as excel or spss useful in quantitative research (Bell, Bryman and Harley 2018, p.101). In addition, the scope of this research is to get as much primary data as possible through interviews from specific companies that have been able to get to the international market. Companies that have not been able to succeed or abandoned the course in different countries will provide crucial information for this research. The main limitation or constraint in this research design is overuse of interview for collection of data over other methods identified such as case study and content analysis. However, the intention is to utilize all data collection methods in equal measure so as to acquire informative data that will be offer much needed insight. Finally, ethical issues will be considered in this research work (Smith 2015, p.44). Some of these ethical issues include respect for privacy and confidentiality, following informed-consent rules, discussion of intellectual property in a frank way as well as being conscious of multiple roles.
Gantt Chart
Period
Task
Who
What Needed
Nov.30-Dec.5
Reading on strategies for research and making a proposal
Me
Net/Lib
Dec.6-Dec.15
Research all possible topics for the research
Me
Net/Lib
Dec.16-Dec. 23
Meet supervisor for briefing and next steps
Me& Supervisor
Office
Dec.30- Jan.30
Data collection
Me
Net/Lib
Office
Feb.1-Feb.5
Data entry
Me
Computer/Office
Feb. 6-Feb. 10
Data analysis
Me
Computer/Office
Feb.11-Feb.15
Validation of analyzed data
Me
Computer/Office
Feb. 16-Feb.22
Writing up report
Me
Computer/Office
Feb.23-March.1
Presentation
Me
Supervisor/Panel
References
Bell, E., Bryman, A. and Harley, B., 2018. Business research methods. Oxford university press.
Cavusgil, S.T. and Knight, G., 2015. The born global firm: An entrepreneurial and capabilities perspective on early and rapid internationalization. Journal of International Business Studies, 46(1), pp.3-16.
Chao, G.H., Hsu, M.K. and Haas, D.A., 2014. Global Market Evaluation: A Longitudinal Efficiency Assessment Approach. Global Economy Journal, 14(3-4), pp.345-371.
De Loecker, J. and Goldberg, P.K., 2014. Firm performance in a global market. Annu. Rev. Econ., 6(1), pp.201-227.
De Mooij, M., 2018. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. SAGE Publications Limited.
Frynas, J.G., Child, J. and Tarba, S.Y., 2017. Non‐market Social and Political Strategies–New Integrative Approaches and Interdisciplinary Borrowings. British Journal of Management, 28(4), pp.559-574.
Grant, R.M., 2016. Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley & Sons.
Ravenhill, J., 2017. Global political economy. Oxford University Press.
Rothaermel, F.T., 2015. Strategic management. McGraw-Hill Education,.
Slack, N., 2015. Gantt Chart. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management, pp.1-1.
Smith, J.A. ed., 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods. Sage.
Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. and DeVault, M., 2015. Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.
Quirke, B., 2017. Making the connections: using internal communication to turn strategy into action. Routledge.
