Desarrollo De Estrategia

STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT





5.1 Determining Your Products' Export Potential

There are several ways to evaluate the export potential of your products and services in overseas markets. The most common approach is to examine the success of your products domestically. If your company succeeds at selling in the local market, there is a good chance that it will also be successful in marketsabroad, at least those where similar needs and conditions exist.
Another means to assess your company's potential in exporting is by examining the unique or important features of your product. If those features are hard to duplicate abroad, then it is likely that you will be successful overseas. A unique product may have little competition and demand for it might be quite high.
Finally, yourproduct may have export potential even if there are declining sales in your market. Sizeable export markets may still exist, especially if the product once did well in your country but is now losing market share to more technically advanced products. Other countries may not need state-of-the-art technology and/or may be unable to afford the most sophisticated and expensive products. Such markets mayhave a surprisingly healthy demand for products that are older or considered obsolete by local market standards.
 

Assessing Your Company's Export Readiness

Answering these general questions about how exporting will enhance into your company's short, medium and long-term goals will help determine your company's readiness to export:
• What does the company want to gain from exporting?
• Isexporting consistent with other company goals?
• What demands will exporting place on the company's key resources, management and personnel, production capacity, and finance and how will these demands be met?
• Are the expected benefits worth the costs, or would company resources be better used for developing new domestic business?
The next step is to more closely examine the impact ofexporting on your company. The questions in Table 1 will help you analyze the decision to export.
 

Developing an Export Plan

Once you have decided to sell your products abroad, it is time to develop an export plan. A crucial first step in planning is to develop broad consensus among key management on the company's goals, objectives, capabilities, and constraints. (Answering the questions listedin Table 1 is one way to start.) In addition, all aspects of an export plan should be agreed upon by the personnel involved in the exporting process, as they will ultimately execute the export plan.
The purposes of the export plan are (a) to assemble facts, constraints, and goals and (b) to create an action statement that takes all of these into account. The statement includes specificobjectives, it sets forth time schedules for implementation, and it marks checkpoints so that the degree of success can be measured and help motivate personnel.
At least the following ten questions should ultimately be addressed:
1. Which products are selected for export development? What modifications, if any, must be made to adapt them for overseas markets?
2. Which countries are targeted forsales development?
3. In each country, what is the basic customer profile? What marketing and distribution channels should be used to reach customers?
4. What special challenges pertain to each market (competition, cultural differences, import controls, etc.), and what strategy will be used to address them?
5. How will the product's export sale price be determined?
6. What specificoperational steps must be taken and when?
7. What will be the time frame for implementing each element of the plan?
8. What personnel and company resources will be dedicated to exporting?
9. What will be the cost in time and money for each element?
10. How will results be evaluated and used to modify the plan?
The first time an export plan is developed, it should be kept simple....