Local champion...

I have been in Belarus again recently and plan to go again this summer. Since then I have been in an ICT related mission in Romania and I am going now in Mauritius for a mission to support the Government innovation & entrepreneurship systems toward ICT companies (and their internationalization).

(It is my usual “lame” excuse not to be more active on this blog)

Anyhow, to come back on the subject of interest here, the message I wanted to give and discussed is this one.

A part from some noticeable exceptions (e.g. truly born-global start-ups; e-bay sellers; companies coming from tiny countries; etc.), time and time again I have noticed that many entrepreneurs in the region focusing toward international market (because it is more lucrative) and failing to breakthrough, often, at the expense of the survival and local development of the business.

The two main reasons I have identified so far are:

- Lack of proper internationalization process

- And lack of competitiveness!

Internationalization processes are multiples but they do require to be planned and properly executed to be sustainable otherwise successes are often more due to luck than anything else. Luck is OK and even welcome but it is not sustainable!

But the biggest trouble is not an immature internationalization process but the lack of competitiveness. Companies jump-start their international business often before to know if they are competitive locally. It is however highly unlikely that the global markets will be less competitive than the company own local market. In turns it means that even if the international process has been well prepared and executed, it will most likely fail because of the lack of competitiveness.

Hence the advice, that before to go international, young companies should compete locally sometimes (however unglamorous). This will avoid the reverse 20-80 scale result in which 80% of total effort goes toward internationalization and only 20% of results come from it!