lunes, 28 de marzo de 2011

The Cultural Environment of Global Markets

During our academic life period we study how different factors affect international business, especially how culture can play along with us or jeopardize an international negotiation in another country. Culture helps us understand how people behave in different situation, how they interact with other people and how easily is to approach in a business context. In order to do that, it’s required a high knowledge of the customs successful in other environments different from ours. 


After reading many definitions of culture, it can be well define as “The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group[1]”. In this globalize world, our success will highly depend in how much knowledge we have on different cultures and how we can use that information to venture our business into those countries.




There are many ways we can know about culture of foreign countries such as newspapers who constantly inform us, a pen pal friend or network friend or the internet which all the times is giving us information behavior and customs., in other hand is the information provide by people who surround us much of the time, such as teachers, friend or family that has more experience and knowledge. Thanks to the globalization tons and tons of information travels around the world and go through our computers stuffing ourselves of valuable information which can be use as a powerful tools to expand our business geographically.  It important how the geography can affect the culture and behavior of a population, as a perfect example we can name our own country Colombia. People from the shore do not have the same customs than people from interior. Knowing this we can use this information to create a unify system to approach to those markets we try to conquer.   


In our context most people think that religion and beliefs are the most important things to know about foreign culture but most of us forget about history, what is behind the society that shapes the human conduct. “One of the first barriers that companies face on the path of internationalization is differences in natural languages. Surprisingly though, language in international business remains an ignored research field[2]”. Language and culture play and important role in international context whether you want to talk with some in a informal context or trying to merchandise a new product in a foreign country. Knowing the language will make thing easier to communicate with the future customers or co works in the new environment. This particularly case can be use in some countries in Europe where there are more than one language such as Switzerland, in this country any multinational enterprises who want to entre in this market will need to make marketing in at least German and French.


Doing an easy exercise, we can see how many different industries exist around the world and how each one is looking every day a strategy to differentiate from others. I’d like to use as an example the food industry, which have to adopt their recopies in every country they want to sale their products. This is a huge challenge because in order to gain customers, is a need to change the original recopies and adapt them to the national culture. As an example we can use Mc Donald’s in India, in this case when the multination food company opened the restaurant in India, they adapted the whole menu to the country needs and customs, such as changing meat for pork. The food industry has to face different cultures and adapt to those new patterns in order to success.


In order to see how culture evolves and adapts depending of the country, it’s important to mention how our compatriots who live in foreign countries adapts they way of living, the food and behaviors to blend into the new host country. It is common to see in New York an arepas stand or in Madrid someone selling bandejas paisas. In contrast of this there are people or countries who do not accept foreign cultures as easy as or neighbors do, this behavior can be call xenophobia. 


These expressions of hate or displeasure for new cultures make people life and have wrong moments and memories about an specific country. This can occur in the international business context, where a foreign company gets a bad perception of the country and decide not to invest in new projects or worse take the company to another place.




The world changes every day and the culture evolves in every country each day, changing peoples habits, tastes, living styles, behavior and values.  Therefore is our duty to the study those instantly changes to understand how those changes affects our life, our business and our interaction to this world.


Finally, in order to create good marketing strategies we must know a complete and thorough appreciation of the origins (geography, history, political, economic and social backgrounds) and elements such as (cultural, rituals, symbols, beliefs, and ways of thinking)  of any culture, to focus all the effort in create the right market strategy to conquer the new market.




jueves, 24 de marzo de 2011

Why export? What motivates it?

The important of internationalization of a brand or company has proved to be worth it in all the cases and could be the difference between live or die in the market. Internazionalitacion could be understood as the process of selling a product or service in an international market or foreign country. The world is changing, the customer receive information everyday and trends change as fast as you can change your clothes, due to those facts companies should maintain constant search for new markets in order to survive.

During this chapter of the international marketing, we can see and analyze the importance of export, what motivates the company to do it, the export process and many strategies that companies applied in their export process.

There are many motivations that makes a company wants to export or start an internationalization process but in order to be successful in this there are some aspects required, such as the level of commitment from the senior management and all the staff involve. Otherwise this process won’t have the results expected by the company. In the other hand, it’s also important to make a market research; this to make sure company is targeting the right market in the new environment and to find out if the competitors are already serving this market and how it’s done, this to draw the right strategies to conquer this goal.

One of the reasons why companies decide to internationalize or export their goods or services are the need to respond to this globalize world, where every company should start thinking how they can grow sustainably in a more saturated national market or how to be more competitive facing international competition in local market. Due to those reasons and more, we find in the reading, two types of reason to internationalize; these are proactive and reactive reasons.

The proactive reasons represent the stimulus for strategic changing but contrary to these, are the   reactive reasons, which influence the company to respond environmental changes and adjust them by changing their activities.

The main proactive reason for entering an international market is mainly the profit advantage, this means the constantly quest for more incomes but this time looking into other markets. Second is the capacity to produce unique goods, in this sense the company could have a substantial added value to provide to the customer but in this globalize world , where the technology flows so fast, this advantage couldn’t be so long. The exclusive information is another proactive stimulus, this includes information about foreign customers, markets or market opportunities that other companies have not see. This particularly stimulus can be create by the international research made by the company. There are other stimulus such as managerial impulse where the desire, impetus and enthusiasms of the high managers impulse the international process; the taxes benefits and the search of scale economies.

The reactive stimulus, which are important to analyze them but is a stimulus where no company should use to increase competitive or act in this international process.  Many companies react due to the competitive pressure made by other companies in the industry. In this case, the fear of losing part of the share of the market by other company that has being benefit from the international market and the scale of economy make the company react. Another stimulus is the overproduction, in this stimulus companies see the international market as a solution to sell the production that is in stock but most of the time this strategy is only made for the short term, facing the possibility that next time international buyers won’t buy the good because they are looking for long term business relationships. The last stimulus goes by the hand with the next one that is the decrease of domestic’s sales and how the companies see the foreign market as the short term solution for that situation and not a strategic decision. The overcapacity and the proximity to clients and ports are the other stimulus that makes companies starts an internationalization process.

During the export process, the company faces many changes, in order to make does changes something or somebody has to start it. The intervention of this person or thing is call exchange agent. These agents are divided in two groups internal and external. The first one refers to the well formed management which discovers the high value that international markets have and decide to explore them. Also in the internal exchange agents, we can find the second level of exchange agents, where the new managements or new workers influence in the decision to invest in conquer new international markets. On the other hand an internal event such as decreasing of sales could lead to the quest of new markets.
From external exchange agents, we can notice how the arrival of international industries to our home market leads to a substantial increase in the interest of a company to start an international process. Also commerce chambers, governmental agencies and other institutions can make companies start those processes by giving them important information about new opportunities in foreign market. Those agents play an important roll in all internationalizations process that any company would like to start because they provide firsthand information about new markets and show the companies how export benefits them.

When exporting a product or good, we have to know as much as possible about the product/service that we are trying to export, this because in reality not all the products are manage the same way or receive the same treatment during the different stages of production and then exports. A good example of this, is the packaging stage where differ depending on the type con handling the product will have, the characteristics it contain, the specifications of the customers and so on. Also the transportation cost may defer depending on the size or weight of the package, this will affect our cost and finally can make our export less profitable. 

In order to make a successful export process or internationalization process, it’s important to take into account the different stages this should take, beginning with the market intelligence or market exploration and ends up with the adaptation of our product to that new market. In the other hand, it is important to analyze and understand the destination countries, culture, markets, competitors and exportation knowledge to can get a successful process.

As a conclusion, we can observe begin and how the different factors inside or outside the company affect in different ways the behavior of a company in the market. It’s also important to remind the important role of a good market research will make the way to success easier for the company or will make them go through the path of failure. 



martes, 1 de marzo de 2011

¿Qué es ser estratégico?

Ser estratégico es tener la habilidad para evaluar la situación y la meta a conseguir y optar por la solución más eficientes sin importas las condiciones, en mundo cada vez tormentoso y cambiante, las empresas deben incluir procesos internos que les permitan adaptarse rápidamente antes cualquiera cambio. Por otro lado ser estratégico es también saber utilizar de manera eficiente los recursos con que se cuentan para lograr sacar el mayor provecho en diferentes situaciones, para lograr ello debemos tener en cuenta que la innovación y la creatividad deben ir atadas de la mano, debido a que estos dos elementos tendrán grandes influencias en el éxito a corto, mediano y largo plazo de la empresa, sobresaliendo de los demás competidores con ventajas comparativas y competitivas , las cuales será difíciles de igualar. 

¿Cuáles son los fundamentales de un gerente y de su estrategia internacional?

Durante muchos años los gerentes se limitaron  solo a coordinar los recursos disponibles tales como recursos humanos, físicos, tecnológicos, financieros, entre otros, ahora es hora de ver la gerencia de otra manera, el gerente debe buscar maneras de motivar a sus trabajadores, mejorar el ambiente de trabajo no solo con bonificaciones en dinero, los cuales son las más comunes sino  también crear un lugar en donde las personas sienta cada día una motivación para ir a trabajar, con ello se busca incrementar la productividad de los trabajadores por ende la empresa producirá mas o en caso de servicios, este sería prestado con mayor eficiencia y eficacia, lo cual se traduciría en una incremento en los ingresos. Por otro lado la innovación hace parte fundamental en esta nueva visión de gerencia, en la cual no solo la alta gerencia debe encargarse de  estos procesos  exclusivamente, se debe incluir a los empleados en los procesos de innovación , darle la oportunidad de que ellos opinen cuales son los próximos desafíos de la empresa o que mejora se puede hacer en el proceso productivo de la empresa para mejorar la productividad, en muchos casos se obtendrán respuesta sorprendentes, las cuales llevaran a mejoras indiscutibles de muchos procesos internos , mejorando por ende la competitividad empresarial y  el ambiente laboral.
Para cambiar los antiguos fundamentales de la gerencia es necesario utilizar todas las habilidades y recursos de la gerencia para lograr, procesos de innovación que en manos de los trabajadores pueden brindar muchas soluciones prácticas a los problemas comunes dentro de la organización.