Today, your business must be prepared to operate within the international marketplace. Recognizing and understanding the economic, political and environmental factors in foreign countries will impact your international expansion plans and increase your ability to sell or produce commodities abroad. In order to succeed, you must create a global business strategy that looks at your company’s operations on a large, worldwide scale.
Start With Business Research
As any good business leader knows, expanding your business strategy to encompass the global marketplace can be difficult, whether your company is large or small. Extensive business research is imperative to ensure that you succeed in this endeavor. You must carefully consider all aspects of your decisions and how they will affect various markets.
Before any decision is made, you must first understand how various markets will react to your products or services. Compare different markets and find out where the biggest need (and largest ROI) will be.
It is also imperative that you thoroughly understand the historical, political and social background of the country or countries that you are aiming to operate in — even successful businesses have failed when they attempt to expand without enough of this knowledge.
To get a leg up on competition, you should brush up on the successes and failures of other companies to know what you can duplicate and what you should avoid. Both general and specific information can be helpful, depending on your stage of research.
When you have this knowledge, you will be thoroughly prepared and possess the confidence you need to devise an effective global business strategy.
Recognizing and understanding the economic, political and environmental factors in foreign countries will impact your international expansion plans and increase your ability to sell or produce commodities abroad.
Recognizing and understanding the economic, political and environmental factors in foreign countries will impact your international expansion plans and increase your ability to sell or produce commodities abroad.
Use the Right Research Tools
Fortunately, there are tools available to help you find the information you need to make the right decisions. Many traditional business research strategies can be tailored to meet the demands of international expansion — they key is using them effectively.
There are a number of ways to collect the data necessary to create a global business strategy. You can gather information through market research reports, SWOT analyses, country profiles and case studies. Once you have executed your plan, be sure to stay up-to-date with current events by monitoring news outlets around the world.
To efficiently gather this information, it can be helpful to use a business reference database, such as EBSCO’s Business Source® Corporate Plus. Databases act as a central point for the research that you need, as opposed to searching throughout the Internet. This makes the overwhelming task of research a little less daunting.
Learn More
To learn more about creating a winning global business strategy, download EBSCO’s complimentary e-brochure, which outlines various research strategies proven useful when expanding your company internationally.