As a part of your evaluation, students shall analyze a companys export environment, potential, capabilities and develop export market selection strategies. The project will give the students opportunity to apply the concepts learned in the course. The assignment supports also the development of report writing, oral presentation, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. In this assignment students apply theory to practice by mimicking a proto type export market entry.
Description:
This course project is a hands-on exercise on the choice of optimal foreign market for an Emirati (UAE LOCAL) product. The project involves three levels of analysis.
First level of analysis- named as Market Intelligence Section – consists of analyzing micro and macro environment such as political, legal, economic and technological environment. This first phase of the project is a pre-requisite to proceed to the second phase of analysis.
The second phase of the project is a social and cultural analysis of the chosen countries from the first phase. This is named as the Social and Cultural section. This first phase of the project is a pre-requisite to proceed to the third phase of analysis.
The third phase of the analysis presents foreign market entry strategies for the countries that finally the company finds suitable to enter. In this section, the students will suggest an appropriate foreign market entry strategy and present critical arguments for validating the choice of the strategy.
Objectives of the project
The key goal of this project is to develop foreign market entry strategy for an Emirati companys product. This is done as a result of cross comparing several foreign markets. The analytical comparison is done in three sections as mentioned above.
1 Market Intelligence section
This first section results in a Market Intelligence Report for the countries that you intend to analyze before selecting the best market. This section provides a broad overview on all the countries including its people, economy, and infrastructure and limits down to one best potential market.
Choose a few foreign countries where the Emirati Company shall launch its product. Do not choose only one single country as part of the analysis in this section. Cross-compare political, legal, economic and environmental conditions of these countries. Give your suggestions and analytical view why you choose one or more countries and not others out of the initial selection.
How to analyze for cross-comparison: Prepare a table with the names of the countries in top head row. The columns of the table shall relate to the environmental variables such as Political, economic, legal etc. You must choose critically the indicators for each of the variables by matching them with your type of the product. For example, for a product such as Emirate Juice, population size of the country matters, however, for an expensive automobile your analysis is more targeted and perhaps a size of the smaller segment of the market and income level of thats segments are two important indicators from the variables of market size and income. Fill in the table for all of the countries you have selected. You shall also rank the indicators in order of importance. Then you give points to the indicators to analyze their significance for your product. Calculate the aggregate of the points and make a decision for the first phase of the report. The countries you have chosen at this phase shall be subject to social analysis to understand the cultural acceptance of the product.
2 Social and Cultural Analysis
This second section requires a social and cultural analysis for the product in the countries that have come up as the best potential market from the section one. You should have figured out this market after filtering the less potential markets in the section one. It involves analyzing the social and cultural environment of the country and evaluating key national characteristics that may affect the marketing and purchase of this product.
Selecting social and Cultural Variables for analysis: Some ideas about the variables that indicate acceptance of products is as follows:
Product-bound cultures and lifestyle characteristics
Consumption and usage patterns
Cultural dimension/attitudes
Benefits sought
Using a proxy product to indicate acceptance of similar products
To make a final choice of the county(ies) at this stage use The year to year growth rates and the total sales of similar or proxy products as these are excellent predictors of market size and growth.
3 Market Entry Strategy Analysis
This third section requires a Market Entry Strategy Analysis for the identified product in the country(ies) being researched. You will recommend a foreign market entry strategy for the chosen country. You shall present a through argumentation on why the suggested strategy is selected and what are the benefits of the strategy for the company. Also you shall present in your report why some other strategies are not selected. This is to validate your choice of the foreign market entry strategy. Please consider the fact that company resources, capabilities, experience, and business and industrial conditions at the foreign market shall determine the choice of the strategy.
Contents of the report
1. The purpose is to choose the most optimum country/ group of countries for the export marketing.
2. Title Page: title of the report, names of the group members & their student numbers and email-addresses.
3. Give a table of contents.
Introduction
4. If applicable, provide information about the company for example the base country for your product and why you choose that.
5. Information about the product/service
6. Statement of the export marketing objectives; either you attempt to export a new product or re-launch and existing product.
7. Information about the group of target countries.
Main Content
8. Your evaluation and discussion of the each of the three sections.
9. Analysis of the suitability of right choice of the country/group of countries.
Conclusion
10. Your own recommendations of why and why not you choose these target market(s). The most important thing is to argue for your decision. The argumentation should be context specific, not in general level.
11. List of references
