Marketing

. “International marketing is very useful to the marketing managers today”. Discuss this statement highlighting the special problems that arise in international business not usually experienced at home

Introduction

The above statement is indeed true; this is because marketing managers today are opening their eyes and looking beyond the horizon to identify and establish new opportunities for their products and business’s across boarders.

Marketing managers are realizing that it’s important to expand aggressively into new international markets and that home markets are no longer rich in opportunity. They are realizing that amidst today’s intensifying competition вЂ" the firm that stays at home to play it safe, not only might loose its chance to enter other markets but also risks loosing its home market.

International marketing is complex because foreign environments are different from home environments; for example, they differ on physical, cultural, legal, political, economic, competitive and distributive dimensions. Because of these environments, marketing managers can adapt parts of the marketing mix for each overseas country or region, for example, a company might alter its packaging, distribution channels and advertisements in each of its international markets.

The following discussion shows how international marketing is useful to today’s managers and their enterprises:

Gains- By operating in more than one country, a firm stands to gain marketing, research and development, production and financial advantages in its costs and reputation that are not available to purely domestic competitors.

Lessons from other firms- Managers have learnt from other firms which have appreciated globalization (e.g. coca-cola) since they enjoy enormous economies of scale in production, distribution and marketing. By using for instance- price as a competitive weapon they are able to devastate the competition from other firms

Free market- In may blocs of the world there has been growing regional cooperation and integration of economies e.g. EU, NAFTA, COMESA e.t.c. the marketing manager in this regard is easily able to freely expand into their neighboring regions and take advantage of the opportunities thereof.

Change agents- By participating in international marketing firms can play the role of change agents in the reshaping of the new identity of national cultures in the countries which they operate. This gives them an upper hand in that particular market.

Harmonizing functions- With the dynamic diversification and coordination, managers can recognize the level and characteristics of their firms' global expansion, not only at the firm level but also at the functional level. This allows managers to establish a global strategy tailored to each function, thus reconciling possible conflicts generated from different interests among different functions in the firm

Boosting profitability- the degree of global expansion of a firm is positively correlated with its financial performance. Therefore going international, a firm increases its customer base and hence attains high profits

Prestige- by portraying a global image the firms prestige is enhanced

Avoidance of home saturated markets- managers can be able to dispose of their excess production.

Tax policies and price controls- a firm is able to escape unfavorable price controls and exploitative tax policies by venturing into the global market place where choice of market is varied and has fewer barriers.

Unparalleled opportunities- the creation of a truly global market place with rapidly expanding middle class today has created enormous opportunities for global brands and multinational corporations. Therefore managers should take advantage of this.

Improved access to resources

The following are some of the peculiar problems experienced in international business not usually experienced at home.

Varied magnitude of changes in technological, political, economic and social-cultural worlds- as global businesses help bring about these changes, they are also affected by it. The problem is that these changes are rapid and their extend varies from one country to another hence the firm may not be fully able to cope and integrate the changes in all their markets.

Cultural integration- this is where the firm find itself having to behave in a new way. this faces both the cultural integrator and the expatriate managers of the firm.

Branding in the global market place- managers face a complexity as a result of the globalization of markets. This requires the manager to approach issues form a multiple marketing perspective e.g. perspective of consumer behavior, modeling and strategy. This creates a problem to the managers since they don’t have wide conceptual knowledge required in foreign markets.

Non uniformity in environmental change- as a marketing manager observes other nation moving closer to one owns nation in many ways, (e.g. economically, culturally, politically) it’s easy for him to accept that movement as similar to many other countries. It’s a problem due to its capacity to mislead.

Managers experience problems when establishing a competitive edge