I do have an assessment for you of Company entry Strategy and I have selected the U.S. market and the product for which I created is S-PAC (Smart portable Alternator charger). I have attached Rubric,

Helpful Hints for Assignment 2 – Group Assignment

I have had several requests to put out some hints on assignment 2. So I have decided to sit down I talk you through the assignment as though I had you in the room or on the phone. I hope these help.

Before looking at the requirements of the assignment, you need to look at the conceptual framework of the unit to understand what we expect from you.

Your Assignments 1 and 2 follows very closely the unit.

Topic 1 and 2 is an Introduction to globalisation and the role of culture in international business.

Topics 3, 4, 5 and 6 provides you with an overview of the international environment - institutions, forces, legal/political/economic systems, trade and investment, national trade policies and cooperation between nations, money, foreign exchange etc., which impact on all international business regardless of location.

Topics 7 and 8 provides you with some tools and ways to manage the international and national environments. Once you really understand the environment and develop a detailed knowledge of the country or countries which you are interested in, you need to develop a strategy which is best for your business, product or service. You are looking for opportunities to exploit. Also you need to work out how to enter your selected country. What mode of entry is best for you? In addition, you must structure your organization to support your strategy and ensure you have control measures in place to make sure you are on target.

Topics 9 and 10 relates to the management of international business operations and includes managing the functional environment within the company to ensure that your functions such as marketing, human resources and operations are all linked to your strategy and support your strategy.

With this overview you should quickly see that Assignment 1 requires you to apply your learning from Topics 1-6, and assignment 2 builds on Topics 1-6, and covers Topics 7-10.

As you developed a DETAILED knowledge of a country of analysis through the meticulous collection of data, statistics, facts and information relevant to your product/service, you now are ready to apply Topics 7 – 10 to your selected product or service. To do this you now need to reform as a group, and pick the most appropriate country for market entry.

You need to analyse and sift through all the environmental information on your country chosen for Assignment 1, and come together with your group members to pick which country you will internationalise your product or service to. Obviously, you will pick the country that is the most attractive, and justify your choice in an appendix. Once you have picked this country, you will then need to develop a strategy to exploit opportunities in the environment and avoid or manage any threats so that the company achieves it goals and makes a profit. You will need to make a list of the opportunities you see in the environment and the threats that the product or service may face, or need to be aware of or manage.

You are required to work out a strategy for your product or service to succeed in the foreign market. Your strategy must include a mode of entry, structure, controls and some mention of managing performance. UNLESS YOU HAVE A DETAILED UNDERSTANDING OF THE ENVIRONMENT YOUR STRATEGY IS LIKELY TO FAIL. General facts and motherhood statements will not provide you with the information to make accurate decisions about entry modes or markets etc. It is a bit like playing a computer game where you have to avoid obstacles. Unless you are prepared for the obstacles you cannot avoid them. You will keep running into walls. If you are a business and haven’t prepared adequately for your move into an overseas market you either give up in frustration or you pull out because you cannot afford the losses.

So how are you going to do this assignment?

First

You should review all information collected, presented and analysed in Assignment 1, with your team members, and pick one country out of the three, which you examined that you think is most attractive. You may wish to come up with a table in an appendix (not included in the word count) justifying the country that you choose, and highlighting why it was the most attractive. In the table, you may have a rating system for each of the factors you examined for each country, and with a final overall rating.

Second

Once you have chosen the most attractive country, you will then need to get your team members up to speed on what are the most important elements for your product/service’s market entry into that country. Is there anything that you were missing or need to collect, so that you have a more accurate overview of the country’s environment?

Third

You will then need to do an industry analysis for your product/service. This means that you will need to look at the industry in your chosen country and identify the potential opportunities that your product/service could pursue? Is the industry growing, what is the size of the industry? You need to evaluate these opportunities or industry segments and provide a detailed view of this industry and the opportunities it offers.

Fourth

Then you need to conduct a market analysis. What is the market or segment of the market you wish to target? To decide on your target market you need to provide a review of the potential market/s for your product/service in the chosen country. You may be able to find information on different market segments through industry reports on your chosen country. There are obviously market segments in Australia, and internationally, you may wish to consider whether these market segments exist also in your target country. You may need to take in to account the types of consumers, or businesses that could be targets for your business. Therefore, a market analysis analyses the types of customers that your product or service should be focussing on.

Fifth

You need to know who else is in the market. This is called a competitor analysis. While this task is usually quite difficult, there should be a reasonable amount of information available on the major competitors in the world and based in your country. But you will need to do serious research to find this out (university databases, industry reports, and the internet will be helpful here). You will need to work out which competitors are in your target country, and hence the levels of competition in the market place. Are there any local competitors or they multinational or international themselves? Are any of these competitors likely to be a threat to the product or service you are selling, and will they directly compete with your product or service? Your competitor analysis should focus on competitors who are operating in the target market your product or service wishes to target. What are the characteristics of these competitors? What is their size? What is the focus of their strategy and threats to your product or service? To deal with the competitor analysis you may want to place important information on your competitors in a table. We recommend an analysis of about 3-5 major competitors.

Sixth

You have developed a detailed, accurate, relevant country scenario or country profile. In addition, you have both, the environmental data from your product/service’s perspective and the market, industry and competitor analyses that your company needs to understand. At this point you should do a SWOT analysis in which you compare the external environment with the company’s capabilities. Look at the strengths and weaknesses of the company in the light of the environment or the threats and opportunities the company faces. Remember that strengths and weaknesses are internal to the company while threats and opportunities are external to the company. You may like to place your SWOT analysis into a table and discuss key points.

Seventh

At this point you are ready to develop your strategy. You should be able to synthesise all the data collected so far and come up with an optimal strategy and mode of entry for your product/service. This is no different to chess or other games of strategy. You should now know what the relevant foreign direct investment and business laws will allow you to do from Assignment 1. You need also to keep in mind the strengths and weaknesses of your company and its capabilities etc in the foreign market. The strategy should also be about what your company would like to achieve for the products or services that it would like to sell. This should include targets for this year, and in the following forecasted years.

Stop and think for a moment, what is the best way for you to approach the target country market. In other words, what is the best strategy for your product or service? What strategy should you pursue? What goals should it set and pursue, for now and into the future.

The questions you are answering for strategy are HOW, WHERE and WHY? How are you going to sell your products/services in your target country? You will need to identify where in the country will you sell the product or service of interest. You also need to specify the type of international strategy that your firm will follow (hint have a look at your textbook for the four international strategy types and choose one and apply). Then you will need to justify it. Why have you chosen this strategy? In your discussion, you need to justify the type of international strategy that you will use for your market entry for your particular country. You must fully justify or explain your choice of strategy.

Eighth

Once you have identified the strategy, you then need to identify the entry modes that you will use for your product or service? Out of all the available entry modes you will need to identify the one which is most optimal for your product or service and why? Hint: Use Dunning’s Eclectic Theory here to justify your choice. You also need to answer HOW? How are you going to implement your entry mode for your chosen country? Make your entry mode practical. What is your mode of entry and why did you make that choice?

For both points 7 and 8, while the assessor is interested in your ability to craft a strategy and mode of entry, the ability to analyse and synthesise the data and justify your decision is critical and one of the major sections of the assignment. All the data for supporting your strategy and entry mode choice should come from your country profile and your industry, market and competitor analyses.

Ninth

Once you have a sound strategy and have worked out how to best enter your chosen country, you need to decide how you are going to structure the company to sell your product/service in the foreign country. Think of the implications for the company and the resources it will need. This will be very important if you consider a Joint Venture (JV) or Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). What are the country’s regulations for foreign operations? Are there structural requirements for the company, for instance the number of directors? Draw a diagram to illustrate the structure of your business in the home country, and host country. Consider exactly how are you going to organise the company, this can include the staffing positions you will need and reporting lines, and how long will it take. It will need to take into account the size of the company and the control measures are you going to put in place?

If you are considering a JV you will need to explain in detail how you will find a likely JV partner. You will also need to fully explain why the potential partner would be interested in establishing a JV with you and exactly what each partner will bring to the JV eg capital, resources, employees, knowledge etc. You will also need to consider how safe the JV is? Does the potential partner have a good reputation in the market place? Or do they have the potential to rip off your company/product or service? How will your company protect their intellectual property from its partner?

You need to also think about the human resource implications of staffing the operations in the foreign country. Will you send home country managers over to oversee operations, and will the remaining staff be locals? Or will the company hire purely locals, or third country nationals. What are the staffing strategy and options they will need to consider to be successful in the foreign country? How will you recruit staff, train and develop them, compensate and manage their performance?

What about marketing, what issues will your company/product or service face in developing its international marketing plan for the foreign country? How will you do it, and will you need to think of different ways to market in the foreign country compared to the home country or in their other international operations. You will need to identify the Four Ps for the company/product or service, and discuss whether these will be standardised or customised for the foreign country.

Tenth

What of the future? What is the vision for your product/service in the foreign country and how is it achievable? Remember you need to make a forecast for 2022. Where will the product/service be in 4 to 5 years? You need to explain your thinking.

Final comments

Hopefully these hints help you tune your thinking to our expectations. You should understand that there is no one strategy that is perfect for your product or service. In fact for your product/service there are many different directions that could be taken. So there are several options that savvy IB people will develop and be able to make work. This is true of IB in general. There are so many ways of approaching a situation. Most successful IB people would argue accurate, timely and relevant information and knowledge is critical. There will be many strategies that will fail because of lack of knowledge of economic factors, legal rules and regulations, cultural information etc.

Therefore, your strategy/entry mode etc does not come out of books, you have to work out the strategy. In fact, you will not find any strategies or modes of entry that specifically relate to your product or services in books, journals or on the internet. However, the theory in textbooks will help you develop your strategy. You must develop a strategy and use all the RELEVANT information you have collected for these assignments to support it. Also you need to ensure you explain your strategy, mode of entry and argue why you consider it is the best for the product/service given the country you choose for internationalisation.

Best wishes

Dr Jane Menzies

February 2018