Warc, 27 August 2013
CAMBRIDGE: Many brands seeking a global presence are not
developing an overarching plan, preferring instead to take a series of small
steps, a strategy expert has argued.
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Nataly Kelly, vice
president of market development at Smartling, the cloud-based enterprise
translation management company, said it was not necessarily the case that only
large-scale advance planning could lead to success when going global.
She pointed out that for many companies, the decision to
take a step into foreign markets had effectively been pushed on them by their
customers.
Kelly cited the example of Apple, which had opened stores
across the US and seen them filled with overseas purchasers buying iPhones in
bulk to take back to sell on in their own countries. Rather than rush to make
products available, Apple had noted the demand and slowly expanded its global
footprint.
This incremental approach, reacting to developments, is one
that more and more companies are adopting. "They are easing into an
international presence one small step at a time, often learning as they go,
creating plans in response to what they learn, and experimenting along the
way," said Kelly.
Digital is the driving force, as consumers from anywhere in
the world can learn about a company and a brand, and need not arrive at a
website via a route determined by marketers.
But these digital paths give marketers information about
what their next step might be, whether that be creating a website in a particular
language for a particular region, for example.
It is important that such opportunities are not ignored,
declared Kelly, noting that companies frequently feared large up-front costs
and an unclear return on investment when expanding.
It is possible, she suggested, to simply translate some
online marketing content in one country to make products and services more
accessible, or to offer some minimal form of customer support.
If such steps proved successful, sales and marketing efforts
could be ramped up in promising locations, with distributors and resellers
utilised to avoid the costs of setting up a physical presence.
"Going global is simply a path, not an obstacle
course," Kelly concluded.
Data sourced from Harvard Business Review; additional content
by Warc staff
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