The Need-To-Knows About Taking Business Overseas

International business sounds incredibly glamorous. Seeing your business settle in an exotic locale. Being treated with the utmost hospitality by partners welcoming you to their city. Helping your brand reach the heights of international superstardom. But before you can enjoy the success, you have to know the risks. There are serious dangers every business owner needs to know about before they start getting any global ambitions.
Know your chances
Research has to be priority number one when looking at overseas markets. You have to do your homework. Does the market of the country you’re looking at have the same need for your products or services? Will the size of the target demographics justify the expense? Are you jumping into a world with more competitors or fewer? There’s nothing wrong with having competitors, but you should be willing to disrupt the market some. Playing the me-too game against those who have been set up longer with a greater knowledge of the market isn’t going to end well.
Volatility is always an issue
If the current political climate across the world should have made anything clear, it’s that we can’t predict how stable or volatile a nation will be. Few would have imagined the trouble that arose in the Ukraine of 2014 or the tensions in Catalonia as of late. Acknowledge the instability is a threat across the world. If you know a country comes with some risk, make sure you protect your investments with a physical security consultant and additional safety precautions. There are real dangers out there that can pose not only a risk to your property and goods but the safety of your personnel.
Friends are essential
You should have significant portions of your business’s support structure ready before you start moving any money or resources. Find overseas partners such as suppliers and distributors in advance. Network, specifically targeting those who are in your country of choice. You can use databases or investigators to get the behind-the-scenes on them, looking at past-lawsuits, bankruptcies, or other signs they might not be the most reliable partner. Make sure you meet all your potential partners in real life, too. The person-to-person relationship can be a good indicator as to whether the two businesses will work out in the long-run.
There are more than two languages involved
The greatest language barrier, you might assume, is that of the language you speak and write in compared to the country you’re trying to expand into. However, when it comes to marketing, customer service, and understanding the consumer, the greatest language barrier is actually the culture. Rather than just translating wholesale, make sure you’re hiring professional localizers for all your marketing and branding material. If you have any personnel making the move to a new location, they need to be trained in the etiquette and some of the most major cultural signifiers of the country with a view to getting a more in-depth knowledge of the place.
There will be more challenges ahead, some of them specific to the country you choose to expand into. The right friends and the right research will help you navigate them, but remember to stay cautious and humble until you get the kind of understanding of the overseas market that you have back home.