You’ve dedicated years of your life to your business, spent sleepless nights and sacrificed your weekends, and basically poured your heart and soul into your company. Now it’s time to take the next big step – introducing your offering to a much, much, wider audience – the world at large! So how do you go about this, and what are the common pitfalls you should be careful to avoid? Let’s find out!
Putting your feelers out – i.e. Market Research
There are many advantages to expanding your business across borders, but one of the biggest is finding a potential audience that doesn’t have access to anything quite like your offering in their own country. Where there is little or even no competition locally, the potential for a really lucrative arrangement is especially enticing – but you shouldn’t be tempted to rush in head first without doing some due diligence. There might be a very good reason there’s no competition – such as a product that isn’t compatible with local cultural or religious beliefs, or simply a particularly tricky language barrier.
Just as with launching a product locally, there are some things you need to ascertain first:
- Are there any legal issues that could stand in your way?
- How will you provide local customer support and deal with time zone differences?
- How big is the potential market, and what products, if any, are currently filling the demand?
- Will you need to relocate temporarily to get things set up, and do you have the funds to do so even if things take longer than expected?
- Is there sufficient infrastructure to allow you to use your current business model, or will you have to think outside the box?
These are just some of the things you’ll need to consider, but they’re a pretty good starting point.
Choosing a country that’s friendly towards foreign investment
Foreign markets are often a little proprietary when it comes to their local industries, whether they’re trying to protect local jobs, or are simply wary of overseas companies that aren’t familiar with the way they do business. And then, there are countries that actively encourage foreign investment, and will even assist overseas businesses with setting up shop. One excellent example is the island nation of Mauritius, where the government and department of trade and industry have set up various initiatives to make the idea of doing business here particularly attractive:
- Zero capital gains tax
- Free repatriation of profits and capital
- No withholding tax
- Confidentiality of company information, and more.
When you’re scouting out potential locations for expansion, then setting up a company in Mauritius or a region with similar initiatives can make the process a lot smoother – and you’ll have the benefit of assistance and support as well as local know-how on the ground when you need it too.
Adjusting to the local market
One of the best ways to get to grips with and start to understand a new region is to work closely with people who actually live and work there. This can be accomplished either by partnering with a local business development agency, hiring a local who has experience in your industry to act as an advisor, or even using Facebook. Facebook allows you to target ads and posts to a specific region, and this can be a nifty tool for interacting with potential customers and ‘real people’ even though they might be thousands of miles away.
And then there are all sorts of minor adjustments you might have to make, such as working in the metric system, formatting dates differently, and of course, getting to grips with a different currency and fluctuating exchange rates. There might even be aesthetic appeals to consider, as not all countries have the same idea of what a beautiful website or logo looks like!
To partner or not to partner?
Many companies are drawn to the idea of parenting with another business in a similar industry in the country you’re targeting, and joining forces. There are many advantages to this, especially in the initial stages, but you also need to bear in mind that you’ll be splitting revenue and profits too. If you’re absolutely confident that you’ve made the right decision to target a new territory, then going it alone can turn out to be more profitable in the end.
Get advice
Even if you do decide to go it alone in a new country, there’s no reason you can’t get expert advice! Global entrepreneurs and advisors, business consultants, lawyers and local business incubators among others can all help you along on the path to world domination!
