Export oriented International Entrepreneurship issue…
As most entrepreneurs, one should try to develop (international) business which are different than others. As Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne demonstrated, it is much better to compete by “creating” or going to a new market niche (innovative way) than to compete on over crowed market (albeit much larger).
This means than the (international) entrepreneur should think out of the box intuitively (as suggested by Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale in “Funky business”) or methodologically by taking on steps using the schemes describe in (e.g. articles in HBR from C. Kim and R. Mauborgne).
The problem is for any (international) entrepreneur is that to get out of the box, it is important to know what is the box! The box here can be broadly defined as the society framework of the market one is trying to access (such as culture at large including business & legal culture).
One can argue that being outside the box is quite easy for an outsider like the international entrepreneur (shortly IE). However, the problem that international entrepreneurs encounter is that to define the box. Not only one should think “differently” but more importantly not to think too differently in order not to be off the mark.
When talking about the export oriented international entrepreneur from CEE countries, the key markets to explore (like for everyone else) are the US, W. Europe (ex-EU15) and Japan.
With the relatively little experience of export (not related to transit trade), this is not easy because of a lack of referential. After all CEE international entrepreneur are trying this for less than 15 years (compare to 100 years+ experience from some other nations).
Going global is expensive not matter how imaginative one is. However for the ever-bootstrapped IE (esp. from CEE) some ways can be used such as:
- Reading newspaper and magazine from the targeted market
- Researching targeted market using online tools (free or not)
- Getting to know the culture as much as possible (via internet, books, TV, etc.)
- Finding local partner or people who have been there to discuss the matter at hand (from virtual means such as LinkedIn or from traditional means such as business organisations and chambers of commerce)
- Using cheap tools (such as VoIP - Skype) to communicate frequently
- Contracting people with strong international experience
- Of course at the very least to “fly” there for a few days… (at least a few time)
These are not the panacea of travelling abroad frequently and living for weeks on the targets market (like Meg Whitman of eBay spending summer 2005 in hot and wet Shanghai for learning to Chinese market key openers) but they can help.
At the end of the day, export oriented activities are culturally constraints (this refers to the cultural distances). Any experienced IE would be telling you it is vital to break the cultural distance as fast as possible and as best as possible!
This means than the (international) entrepreneur should think out of the box intuitively (as suggested by Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale in “Funky business”) or methodologically by taking on steps using the schemes describe in (e.g. articles in HBR from C. Kim and R. Mauborgne).
The problem is for any (international) entrepreneur is that to get out of the box, it is important to know what is the box! The box here can be broadly defined as the society framework of the market one is trying to access (such as culture at large including business & legal culture).
One can argue that being outside the box is quite easy for an outsider like the international entrepreneur (shortly IE). However, the problem that international entrepreneurs encounter is that to define the box. Not only one should think “differently” but more importantly not to think too differently in order not to be off the mark.
When talking about the export oriented international entrepreneur from CEE countries, the key markets to explore (like for everyone else) are the US, W. Europe (ex-EU15) and Japan.
With the relatively little experience of export (not related to transit trade), this is not easy because of a lack of referential. After all CEE international entrepreneur are trying this for less than 15 years (compare to 100 years+ experience from some other nations).
Going global is expensive not matter how imaginative one is. However for the ever-bootstrapped IE (esp. from CEE) some ways can be used such as:
- Reading newspaper and magazine from the targeted market
- Researching targeted market using online tools (free or not)
- Getting to know the culture as much as possible (via internet, books, TV, etc.)
- Finding local partner or people who have been there to discuss the matter at hand (from virtual means such as LinkedIn or from traditional means such as business organisations and chambers of commerce)
- Using cheap tools (such as VoIP - Skype) to communicate frequently
- Contracting people with strong international experience
- Of course at the very least to “fly” there for a few days… (at least a few time)
These are not the panacea of travelling abroad frequently and living for weeks on the targets market (like Meg Whitman of eBay spending summer 2005 in hot and wet Shanghai for learning to Chinese market key openers) but they can help.
At the end of the day, export oriented activities are culturally constraints (this refers to the cultural distances). Any experienced IE would be telling you it is vital to break the cultural distance as fast as possible and as best as possible!
posted by Laurent Potet at
10/10/2005
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