shush, we're closed

Altough I'm still working on "how to select a new foreign destination for your international business", I recognize that a hot topic of this years is closing subsidiaries. The statistics on voluntary closures and liquidations are showing values almost equal or bigger than newly registered companies.

There's no doubt that many mistakes can be made during the decision-making process of opening new offices abroad. Insufficient or erroneous information can mislead the top management to believe there is business potential where there isn't actually any.

new to a new market?

OK, maybe this post's title holds too much newness, but when a company expands internationally, there are two types of market situations it can encounter: either the sector is well established & pretty much everyone in that market knows the product, or the company brings a new-to-market kind of service.

The later is the most interesting marketing challenge: how to market your new b2b service and find early adopters. 

how we made our product best on the market

This is a story about a B2B international company entering the Romanian market a while ago, finding a rocky territory, taking the challenge and achieving to produce and market the best product available in its sector - fiduciary B2B services.

You have to know that the raw "material" used by this int'l company to create its product - company data - is found, in Romania, in a diversity of sources, more or less known, accurate, concurring or updated. Ergo the difficulties, later turned opportunities, of creating a complete and coherent product to offer to the market. 

Initially, this company came with a product similar to what the competitors were offering, but soon it stepped out of this "safe" zone and steps were taken in the direction of leadership:

the smart starter

I’m coming back to my favorite subject - the one about market education & start-up offices abroad.

Bringing a new service into an emerging market, while being very well established into its home market, means that the company has to spend a lot of marketing effort communicating the benefits of using that generic category of service, before actually mentioning its own brand name, proving its competencies in delivering that service and promoting itself as reliable vendor of that service.

local offices - autonomy vs. control

I always wondered what's the healthiest amount of control Headquarters should exert over their offices abroad.

I'm not talking legal or administrative; I'm not debating branch vs. subsidiary as incorporation form; I'm wondering about the intricacies of headquarters' control over the local offices - how much freedom should the latter have in terms of market strategy?

Working in subsidiaries, I sought independence in some marketing decisions and had to fight for it; working in Headquarters, I'm looking for absolute control over the communication and actions, although I'm fully aware of how important local business culture knowledge is.

discretely launching this

This is a somehow secret blog on international marketing stuff.

I found myself browsing through intl_mkt pages full of criptic or niche information, without finding an actual good source on how to market your b2b services internationally.

This is why www.zoominglocal.com is happening.
As long as my free time will allow it, i'll post about my experience.

Because I've been on both ends of an international business: I've worked in subsidiaries of  B2B services company, and I've worked in the headquarters of a software producer & exporter.

My other expectation from this page, besides offering my views and what I know, is maybe get answers to my unsolved dilemmas, learn more by documenting for my posts, and receive advice from my peers.

The secret part, well, that i'll explain later.

Until then, check out this Blog's Presentation done with Prezi - a cloud-based presentation software with zoomable canvas.

intlmkt blog prezi on Prezi

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Disclaimer: this blog reflects my own opinions. Everything published here is my personal view, built from my overall professional experience and from the educational content I've absorbed.

P.S. My Technorati blog code is E4FRU445SA9R.