An International Market Entry Strategic Plan

Locally, XYZ Company’s Expansion and Potential for International Markets

Locally, XYZ Company has been expanding rapidly, turning into an all-level management firm with a crucial competitive edge in the retail sector that sells food and non-products, primarily clothing. However, after investigating the matter and looking at the overall company key performance indicators, it is important to note that XYZ Company can improve its performance even further than it is now doing. The business has the necessary infrastructure, resources, and creativity to expand its operations internationally. But this could be more operative if the company mission and strategies could be used more effectively to enable the company to enter into the international markets. Described below is strategic plan on how the company can enhance its mission in the international market.

Mission Statement

The company seeks to be the world’s premier and leading retailer through increasing value for customers while earning their time reliability.

Aim

The company aim is to become leading food and non-food retail supermarket and offer good quality services and products at the lowest cost compared to our competitors.

Objectives

To maximize our company’s sales through production of high-quality products, and in doing so increase our profits

To make retail food and non-food products easily affordable to all people by carefully segmenting our markets for specific needs with appropriate product quality

To support health living by introducing more healthy products which are less in calories within our outlets.

To establish an online shopping platform over which our clients can buy and register complains while abroad

To significantly reduce unemployment levels by fully reaffirming our support to the local community by employing locals in our outlets.

Environmental Analysis

SWOT Analysis

a) Strength

Purchasing Power: Local demand for retail products has upsurged in the US. Consumers are increasing their propensity to buy more products. The major products purchased are the clothes, grocery products, and even teas shops. The introduction of fast moving goods in the retail industry has seen an increase in consumer purchasing power, especially from middle-income earners.

According to a report published by Bryson (2011) US retail industry has potential consumer sale of about 470 million. The industry is predicted to have increased consumer purchasing power to 570 million in 2021. Additionally, US retail industry has had a wider market at international level. The biggest strength a company or industry can have is the growth in customer’s numbers which guaranteed the business that whatever is produced will axiomatically be consumed. The US government has strongly expressed its concern in supporting the retail industry both locally and globally (Luo & Tung, 2007).

b) Weakness

Political factors: The recent political occurrences in the US have not warranted the retail industry performance. All the away from Trump administration debate and Britain withdrawal of its membership from the European Union, US retail industries has faced a lot of challenges in consolidating their international buyers.

The Trump administration means that the US retail industries that were initially located within the European Union have to reconsider their legal requirements for them to continue their operations in such countries. This will affect their operation as different countries will set different rules which the companies need to adopt. Some policies which are likely to influence the retail industry are tax laws within the European countries.

Poor supply chain management: Infrastructure is the primary determinant of any industry performance. Moreover, the retail supply chain in US industry although it has improved, it still faces hurdles which reduce the effectiveness by which products are delivered to customers.

Notwithstanding high footfalls, the conversion ratio among the US retail industry does not promise at all. Studies approximate that the conversion rate for a given mall is as low as 20-25% while a high street retail store chain has a conversion cycle of 50-60% (Yeaple, 2003).

c) Opportunity

Digital Strategy: US retail industry has experienced massive technological application in the entire sector from production to distribution of the products to potential customers. Digitization of the sector platform has been the recent changes that have revolutionized the industry. Under the digital platform, customers can quickly browse what is in store; place order and the product are delivered to them in the nearest time possible (Luo & Tung, 2007).

US retail industry has got an opportunity in the international market which has been brought about by globalization. Globalization will enable the industry to get access to new markets and an opportunity to restructure their supply chains to serve all the new and existing markets competently. Rural Retailing: The international markets have a large population based in rural areas. The fact that this population forms a potential market for retail products, retailers are in a rush to establish retail outlets in rural areas to maximize the untapped market which has the potential of increasing and promoting the development of the retail industry (Yeaple, 2003).

There is a stiff competition between real estate industry and retail industry. The real estate industry is constructing and turning some shopping mall into residential apartments which threaten the future and sustainability of retail industry in the US which has caused high rentals that put more pressure on profitability. By going international, the company will have cut down on ever-growing operational costs by establishing its operation inn international markets where costs of operations are low. Human resource management has remained one of the challenging factors in US retail industries. The industry has been accused of paying employees low wages which have caused burnout as employees seek to find a well-paying job from other industry. Consumer taste and preferences have changed, and thus the retail industry is at risk of losing their consumers to international firms which offer them better products and services (Luo & Tung, 2007).

Competitive Advantage

The company will attain its competitive edge through the following methods:

Product differentiation:

the company will customize its products and diversify the products over a wide range of products. In doing so, the company will alter develop line products which will help the company to remain competitive throughout the seasons. Products will be well labeled with the company log and well packed for attracting customers.

Offer customer loyalty cards:

Customers will be offered with a loyalty card which upon making a purchase, the card accumulates points. The point accumulated can be redeemed for free products cash based on the numbered of points. This will make the customer remain loyal to the company. Additionally, those customers with the card will be subjected to monthly offers for keeping and using the company card while shopping.

Offer quality products at low prices:

The Company will retail high-quality products which cannot be compared to the quality of clothing offered by the current competitors in the market. Quality products coupled with affordable prices will help the company to attract new and retain the current customers, as the products are designed to bring utmost satisfaction when the purchase and used as steered by the company mission statements and objectives.

Automatic inventory replenishment systems:

To serve the customers timely and maintain the reliability of our products, the companies will introduce an automatic inventory replenishment platform which will habitually alert the supply chain manager of any need to replenish stock in the various outlets by setting the minimum unionist of each product. This will ensure that customers are not dissatisfied when they need products and don’t find the products. Secondly, the system will be deigned to also automatically redirect an online order placed by customers to nearest outlets which are near to the customer and thus ensuring timely delivery with minimum transport costs (Pearce, Robinson, & Subramanian, 1997).

Store design:

The Company will design its stores in a modern way. Visual merchandising will be at its optimal with the shopping mall having products at a strategic point in the mall and contained in the quality lockable cabins as well as the general display. The outlets will be spacious, with enough walking space, a flow that allows smooth movement of customers, maintaining products at customer’s eye level for easy traceability, and display cases for expensive products.

Enhance customer care relations:

The company will ensure social media platform exist to assist in processing customer needs within the shortest time possible. An example the upgrading of Domain Name System (DNS) at Tesco which is used to address all client needs including routing of an online order to the nearest outlets for customer delivery (Yeaple, 2003).

The company will use various products positioning approaches which involve Functional positioning which entails providing products based on their discrete functionality, the Symbolic positioning of products will also be used to identify these retailers who focus on the aspirations of consumers. For example, using various symbols to signify their effort in refusing to use cotton grown in countries where child labor is practiced (Yeaple, 2003).

The companies have had long-lasting relations with their suppliers: Most of the products that are retailed especially nonfoods are directly sourced outside US. This has made the companies even to negotiate better prices which increase their profit margin compared to other smaller retailers in the industry.

International Entry Strategies

A market entry strategy can be defined as the blueprint or a well-thought approach through which a company is going to deliver its products and services to the target market as well as its distribution. The following strategies are proposed to be used by the company while going abroad:

Joint Venturing

This is another immediate entry mode into the international markets. Under this entry method, the company will simply invest in an already existing business dealing in the same products abroad. This from the most cheapest way of going abroad as no expenses are incurred like in the case if the company opted to open up a direct production plant in the host country.in the essence joint ventures will result in a new branded retail shop being set out in the host country (Yeaple, 2003).

Joint ventures are encouraged for those companies to groin international and which are at its first steps because the business risk is shared among the parties equally and thus minimizes chances of an investor losing all his or her investment in cases unforeseen action occurs in the host country. Secondly, joint ventures usually warrant a strong financial base as each part contribute toward the business including their initial assets which help the business to save on cost and strengthen its competitive agenda effectively with no financial hitches (Luo & Tung, 2007).

Thirdly, due to political restriction and other business restrictions imposed by different countries, a joint venture may only be the best from of entry in that market. Nevertheless, the following drawbacks are at hand: lack of full control over the business, difficult to recover your invested capital if need be, and thirdly management problems due to different business views among parties. A good example of a joint venture involves Sonny Ericsson and Virgin mobile companies (Altshuler & Grubert, 2003).

Licensing

The company can use licensing to authorize some agents in international markets to sell their products on their behalf. Since this will be the first time the Company is going international, a lot of costs are usually involved in meeting the legal requirement within a given country which sometimes is much costly, to cut on such costs the company should simply find individuals in those countries and give them licenses to trade on its behalf. The only costs incurred under this mode of the strategy include the policy drafting costs and facilitating its implementation. Licenses benefit a company by reducing risks and cost of setting up production and distribution of products abroad.

Implementation of the Strategy

The implementation of the strategy will take into account the following:

Communicate: all aspects of this strategy will be communicated well to all stakeholders in the company. This will involve sharing of the information with other people like employees and managers through platforms like company social media platform, brief meeting on the milestones and achievement of each step.

Engage people: Implementing strategies is demanding a lot from other people. Many people will be involved in each stage while delegating duties to them towards the achievement of the strategy. Participation will quicken the implementation as it makes people feel part of the strategy.

Resource mobilization: Key resources will have to be mobilized. Of importance are the financial resources which need to be looked into various ways of funding business strategies. The main methods to use are debt financing and equity finance.

Setting strategy milestones and scorecard to evaluate its progress: This is the process of identifying all aspects of the strategy and setting a timeline for its occurrences and effectively measuring the outcome over the predetermined expectations.

Embedding the strategy in company objectives and missions: This will help all parties in the company to associate the implementation of the strategy with the company objectives and missions.

Link the strategic plan to daily company activities: Keep the strategy noticeable by integrating it into company routine activities like staff meetings.

Conclusion

The company has the capacity of improving its performance based on the available resources. In order to do this, the company needs comprehensive strategic plans that will steer its objective of entering in the global market. The above strategic plan will be used by the company to expand its activities from the local area to the international market which if critical in enhancing the performance of the business.

References

Altshuler, R., & Grubert, H. (2003). Repatriation taxes, repatriation strategies and multinational

financial policy. Journal of Public Economics, 87(1), 73-107.

Bryson, J. M. (2011). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to

strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement (Vol. 1). John Wiley & Sons.

Pearce, J. A., Robinson, R. B., & Subramanian, R. (1997). Strategic management: Formulation,

implementation, and control. Chicago, Illinois: Irwin.

Luo, Y., & Tung, R. L. (2007). International expansion of emerging market enterprises: A

springboard perspective. Journal of international business studies, 38(4), 481-498.

Yeaple, S. R. (2003). The complex integration strategies of multinationals and cross country

dependencies in the structure of foreign direct investment. Journal of International Economics, 60(2), 293-314.