International Marketing (2486 words)

International MarketingMeasuring a potential business venture has many aspects
which the international manager must be aware of in order to
convey the correct information back to the decision makers.

Being ignorant to any of the aspects can lead to a false
representation of the project, and hence an uninformed
decision being passed. In order for a business to survive it
must grow. For growth to be optimal, management must first
be able to identify the most attractive prospective leads. The
country as a whole, specifically geography, government, and
financial aspects must be looked at in order to yield the best
possible picture of the market a company wishes to enter.

Concentration should be placed on gathering reliable facts
that are backed up by more than one source. It is to be hoped
that after creating a picture of the market, management’s
analysis of the potential business venture and plan of action
will be structured as to avoid losses and to find the most
profitable scenarios. The success of the multinational
corporation lies on the shoulders of it’s management.

International management and organization-design expert
Henry Mintzenberg says every CEO has three essential
duties: direct supervision, development of the organization’s
strategy, and management of the organization’s boundary
conditions. Top management’s responsibility at and beyond
the organization’s boundaries is largely a communication
responsibility; however, no commonly accepted model exists
for decision, execution, and assessment of communication
opportunities. Within even some of the largest and most
venerable organizations, the process used is haphazard and
inconsistent. The Wyatt Company’s survey of communications
professionals showed that just 58.1 percent agreed that their
organization’s communication objectives are linked to
business objectives, and 83.3 percent reported that their
organizations conduct no formal review of return on
communications investment. CEOs must establish and
reinforce an organization’s image in public by viewing each
target public as a client; by doing research, looking at trends,
and talking to experts, a CEO focuses on selling what the
client wants to buy.1 Finding a country to conduct business in
can be a very easy task depending on if the organization’s top
management follows the advice of Mr. Mintzenberg. The way
a company normally discovers where to conduct research is
through leads on potential operations from outside sources.

The selection of which leads to investigate becomes the
difficult task. After sifting through the leads and finding the
right ones to investigate management must formulate an
international marketing plan. This further helps management
in locating potential markets for their products. The first step
is to use secondary research to find out what the sales
potential is in a given market. Asking the questions of need,
demand, and support gives one a starting point for research.

If we were a company that sold pants we might want to ask
the following questions. Is there a need for pants? Is it cold
enough there to wear pants? Do people that demand the
pants have money? These are the questions that one should
ask of potential markets. Table 1-located at the end of the
paper-shows the statistics that are needed for a general
market picture. After gathering the information from the
secondary research, the picture of a potential market
becomes more evident. However, to make the picture clearer,
one must conduct primary research. This research outlines
the specifics of the potential market that directly pertain to the
product. Robert Douglas’ book, Penetrating the International
Market, addresses the issue of locating potential markets in
greater detail.2 [mg1] After finding a lead that contains
profitable markets it is necessary to analyze the venture as a
whole. The decisions of companies must be based on the
facts of reliable sources on all investments. To gather the
information needed for investment projects, management
must organize a competent feasibility team. The members of
this team should be comprised of employees of the company,
this is so that the knowledge will stay within the company. If
the resources are not available for an employee conducted
study then outside consultants may be used, it may also be
beneficial to use a combination of the two. The first step in
conducting a study is to design it by using project objectives
as the base. During the second step the team must be staffed
with people that have the ability to solve problems in any
situation. In the third step the team should be properly placed
and instructed. In the fourth and final step the product of the
feasibility study should be properly communicated to the
decision-making management.3 Table 2-located at the end of
the paper-shows a general timeline that a company follows
through the progression of a feasibility study. The design of a
feasibility study first assumes that a company