Marker Entry Analysis

Assessment task: A plan for international business of a chosen company

This is an individual report. You are required to prepare a 3,000-word report that presents internationalization for a firm that you choose. You should develop the following elements:

• identify a potential foreign market and conduct an analysis of the business environment
• suggest market entry method (or combination of methods) that would be the most optimal for your chosen firm to use in that market
• and provide the managerial implications for the issues that might arise in the local market

The requirement: Assignments should be a maximum of 3,000 words in length, (including citations in text, excluding appendices, tables, figures, table of contents, executive summary and bibliography). Please state the word count on the title page of your report and keep presentation neat and tidy. Please use proper academic English as possible as you can.

Please select one real existing company for this report. There is no constraint on size, industry or nationality, for example. However, it must be real (i.e. not fictitious). Then select a target foreign market this existing company has not entered. That is to say:

• An existing product/service to a new market that a firm has not entered

It is preferable that your chosen firm is not yet present in the target country you have selected. This is so that you analysis will be your own, demonstrating your own ideas and independent and critical thinking.

The final structure and balance of the internationalization plan will depend very much upon the firm, the products and/or services you have decided to internationalize, and the target market you have chosen. However, your plan could include the following structure:

1) A short introduction.

Your work should contain a formal introductory section that introduces the reader (i.e. explaining the purpose, objectives and structure of the document) and your chosen company. Some of the content recommended below in (2) can be included in the introduction, or in a section that immediately follows the introduction.

2) A brief description of the chosen firm and the product or service it is internationalizing.

You may wish to consider writing, for example, What are the unique selling points of the product/service? What are the company’s core competences, sources of competitive advantage, ownership advantages, and/or firm specific advantages (FSAs)? What most influences the purchasing decision of its customers? How internationally experienced is the company? What data (financial and otherwise) can you present to illustrate the company’s recent performance? Does the company have the resources (human, managerial, financial, and other resources) to implement your plan? But, only include analysis here that informs your internationalisation plan. Marks will not be awarded for the inclusion of analysis that is not relevant to the plan.

3) Business opportunity identification. For example, how have the characteristics of the firm and its products/services helped to determine the internationalization strategy. Simply, why has your chosen company decided to further internationalize its activities? Refer to the motives for internationalization and the drivers of foreign direct investment discussed in class. This explanation could also be included in the introductory section, or considered during your analysis of target country.

4) An analysis using PESTLE framework for the selected target market

Questions and issues you may wish to address include, for example:

• What are political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal aspects of your target market environment? You need to clearly show how the external environment of the foreign location has influenced your choice of entry mode. What are the main risks, cost and uncertainty factors associated with the host country? How will these issues be addressed or accommodated by your choice of entry mode? Are there any important ethical or sustainability issues for your firm to consider?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing business in this specific country/region? This requires you to present strengths and weaknesses of your business.
• Among other relevant factors, you could outline how the following issues have influenced your thinking about key decisions, strategies and operations in your chosen country. Please provide a short summary for business opportunity that you identify for the company.

5) A clear recommendation of the optimal foreign market entry mode(s) for this market

Typically, this will involve deciding between exporting, licensing, franchising, joint venture, wholly-owned subsidiary, contract manufacturing, organizational structures or another arrangement. Please pay particular attention to this section, as it will be here where many marks will be gained and lost. You should clearly state:-

− Why you have decided upon a particular foreign expansion method (taking into account your chosen market’s characteristics and the competences and resources of your chosen firm)?

− What are the organizational structure that you suggest for the organization to adopt when expanding the business?

− What are the advantages of this expansion method for your chosen firm vis-à-vis alternative strategies and their disadvantages? This aspect ideally should be presented as a formal and structured analysis, not descriptively.

• Should the entry process be phased over time (with one expansion method used first, and replaced by another later)?
• Should different parts of the value chain be split across multiple locations in the selected host country or in other foreign locations? For example, should the company manufacture in one location and sell into another?
• Should the entry mode change over time as circumstances change?
• How will the supply chain be managed (e.g. will local agents or distributors be employed in the foreign market)?

6) Managerial implications

Organisational functionalities should be discussed in corporate with cultural and ethical issues that arise from using the chosen entry strategy in the target country, in respect of particular functional areas (e.g. R&D, marketing, manufacturing, HRM), as appropriate. It is highly likely that there will be cultural, ethical and managerial implications and these should be considered in your analysis and discussions (ideally in a specific and separate section).

7) A definitive conclusion, with clear and feasible recommendations

Your report should clearly present your recommendations and the basis on which they are made. You might also discuss the limitations to your work and the type of information the company would need in reality to make an informed decision. This should be done in a section at the end headed ‘Conclusions and recommendations’. Marks will be awarded for the persuasiveness and clarity of your recommendations in this concluding section. Present a definitive recommendation about the best target country for the company to enter next and the foreign expansion method it should use.

Additionally, you should include

8) Theory, data and information

In preparing your plan, it is expected that you will use academic sources to provide a theoretical framework. You should use information in the public domain, such as up-to-date country profiles, market intelligence reports and company information (for example, published material, electronic databases and the world-wide-web) to complement this theoretical framework. You are not expected to obtain confidential information from any particular company or organization. However, this type of material can be used in instances where you have good access to a particular firm. For example, you may wish to interview key people, or conduct a small survey by questionnaire, or you may wish to contact a previous employer or perhaps a family member who works for the chosen company. All this is to be encouraged. Effort to collect primary data is often rewarded by markers…

9) A bibliography that sets out the scholarly papers, books and information sources you have cited in the body of the report. Please use the Harvard method of referencing.

In short, you need to propose a cogent and feasible international business plan, drawing upon theory, scholarship and good quality information, that outlines why and how your chosen firm should extend its business into a new and specific geographic territory. Think about trying to produce a professional and business-like analysis that would be well-received by the management board of your chosen organization.

Assessed Coursework Report Mark Sheet

To guide you, here is the mark sheet that will be used to evaluate your coursework. Note in particular how marks will be distributed across major sections of the work. As a guide, the word count for each section in your report should be in rough proportion to the distribution of marks indicated below. Please also note how the module learning outcomes relate to each criterion on which your report will be graded. It pays to put more effort into the sections where most marks are awarded.

1. Brief description of firm and the business to be internationalized (10%) [Assesses Learning Outcome A]
2. Use and application of relevant sources and academic literature (15%) [Assesses Learning Outcome A]
3. Environment analysis for host country (25%) [Assesses Learning Outcome C and D]
4. Implementation of entry mode and organizational structure selection analysis (30%) [Assesses Learning Outcome A, B and C]
5. Analysis of ethical, cultural and managerial implications (10%) [Assesses Learning Outcome D]
6. Effective use of analytical frameworks, tools and models (10%) [Assesses Learning Outcome A and B]