This article is the first in a series of articles reviewing the internal and external factors to evaluate prior to rolling out a globalization strategy for your web and mobile apps, e-commerce sites, SaaS or cloud-based software company. While still very helpful advice for companies with physical products, there are many more factors to consider when globalizing a physical technology product such as import/export, licensing, storage, distribution and more. This series is designed to give you a blueprint to follow and helps you narrow down which countries would be best to start with.
Firstly, this is a great time to go global for any size company. There is significant energy around international entrepreneurship and the amount of excellent resources and support available is unprecedented.
As you decide which countries are best for taking your business to international markets, there are quite a few things to plan for prior to or in parallel with your decisions. Don’t let this process intimidate you. We will provide you with the resources needed to make that process less painful.
It’s much easier to make good decisions when you know more. The better prepared you are, the easier it will be to make and execute on those decisions.
Global expansion preparation for both physical and digital products requires a plan and support from both internal and external resources.
In this blog article, we’ll look at the first factor for a successful global strategy, getting company-wide commitment. Let’s explore what that means exactly.
Company-Wide Commitment
The road to successful globalization isn’t always direct, easy or fast. Often the path is filled with bumps and blocks, so and it’s critical to get long-term support with a long-term vision. A frequent mistake companies make is that they have a short term vision, limited internal commitment, temporary funding that’s at risk of being pulled, and not enough staffing resources to take on the additional workload over time. False starts in some countries are often hard to overcome because their culture is one of building trust slowly and forging relationships, which take time and effort. When you break that trust, it may be very difficult to gain it back again at a later date. The support you will need varies by company but here is an overview of some of the stakeholders to consider.
Leadership support
One of the most important success factors for going global is to have a realistic understanding of how supportive and committed your leadership is to making globalization a long-term initiative. Some questions to ask are:
-Is this initiative being championed by the organization or by one individual?
-Is there a 5-year plan that includes the international initiatives by country?
-Are there pressures for your global investments to contribute immediately to the overall business in a significant way?
-Does leadership have the long-term vision needed for success?
The leaders need to be willing to assign clear and measurable goals to each member of the team, provide the resources needed for success and hold everyone accountable for reaching the goals.
Internal champions
Having a champion or several influential internal champions as well as people who are specifically tasked with the success of the global initiatives are also necessary. It may not always be feasible to have a dedicated staff person, most likely, team members will take on this additional challenge as a part of their current role. The internal champions should have the passion, ability to get people to rally around the initiatives, keep the teams motivated, take the lead on compiling the information and resources needed, help the team execute, report on traction and keep the communication flowing.
Financial support
To fully go to market in another country, your company will need the funds required to support global initiatives including such potential costs as consultants, global tools, staffing in-country, operations, marketing and sales budgets for customer acquisition in each country, customer success support in different languages and time zones, additional localization resources such as having to customize your product for each country and more. In order to really test a market, the funding should be available over at least 2-4 years before you can really evaluate the success and long term viability.
Support from teammates
Often people are asked to set aside some of their time to dedicate to global initiatives, especially product localization and go-to-market teams. Evaluate how much time they will be willing to allocate before it negatively impacts their current job. Realize there may be limitations for how long they are willing to support you unless it’s an official part of their goals. Having some official global goals that are measured for each person involved will help to make sure the international initiatives are given the attention needed for success.
Legal/Accounting/HR/Ops/Data Privacy support
Going international puts some strain on all aspects of the current business. Business functions such as legal, finance, accounting, HR, data privacy, and operations may not have the expertise needed for international compliance specific to your company’s global initiatives, especially if you decide to set up a business entity and have dedicated employees in other countries. It’s best to assume that you will need some outside expert or vendor support for contracts, taxes, compliance issues and ongoing management of these functions.
While there are many factors that contribute to successful global initiatives, not all of these will apply to your specific business. Going slow and starting small is a great option.
About Globig
If you have international offices with employees and business teams focused on foreign markets, the Collaborate Global, a platform for secure and data privacy compliant collaboration, data sharing, and project management is a must for saving valuable time and money, and for managing risk. Learn More
