Expanding a business is a daunting yet rewarding move for any business owner or entrepreneur. When a business is expanding internationally, it can be even more challenging and risky. Whether you are expanding to a single country, a continent or multiple countries, it is crucial to understand all there is to know about internationalisation before taking the plunge. If you have an expert on internationalisation, you are going to have many questions and don’t know how to start your plan. This article will go through the first step of the hurdle by giving your a range of topics to consider.

For the process to begin, you will need to create a thorough business plan that maps out each and every step you need to take whilst including the risks and hurdles that you may face along the way. For this, you must also research the specific information on each country that you are looking at expanding into. This includes the types of barriers you may face involving language and cultural barriers as well as the type of competition that you are going to face.

When a business is expanding internationally, it is inevitable that you are going to face many forms of challenges so it is best to prepare for these. The more you prepare, the better the chance of success which not only benefits you but your customers and your employees. If you don’t plan accordingly and prepare for hurdles, the business can face some detrimental losses in a flash, due to your brand being damaged, the next time you try to expand will be much riskier. In the following reading, we will go through some of the main factors to consider before internationalising your business and then we will go through some factors you should sort out before you internationalise your business.

What Should I Consider Before Internationalising A Business?

Affordability

One thing that is for certain, when you internationalise your business, you are going to find that there are a lot more costs

involved, some you may not have considered. The first thing you should do when considering expanding your business to new countries is to see how much it is going to cost you and whether it is a viable option. Costs involved include office space, costumes, shipping and even production.

These costs vary from country to country and some costs are unique and only apply when internationalising your business such as customs. Customs are specific to internationalisation, and whilst illegal in most countries, there are some countries that will accept bribery as it is perfectly normal to pay governments if you need things done, but as we said, this is illegal in many countries, not to mention immoral. 

The best way to determine whether you can afford the move is to list all of your costs together and see whether the return balances out. If it turns out that you will be in deficit for the first couple of years, it may mean that expanding your product or service range in the country you are in is a more viable option.

Marketing Strategies

Marketing strategies are something that should be analysed regularly anyway, but if you are internationalising a business, you will find that you may need to do a completely fresh start. What marketing strategy works in your country such as the UK, may not be the best fit for another country such as Dubai.

Messaging is a huge part of this, so it is important to have the other countries’ language, culture, tone and messaging in mind to meet their needs and understanding as this is what is going to make more of an impact. If you are struggling to meet, this, then hiring a local marketing agency will be the best option for you.

Tax & Employee Regulations

Different countries have their own rules and regulations so it is important to take this into consideration when hiring your new staff and internationalising your business. An example of this is the UK have extremely strict rules and regulations that are in place to look after the safety and wellbeing of their workers through the “Health and Safety at Work Act 1974” whereas other countries such as China and India have less strict rules about this. Other countries have their separate governing bodies such as Mexico, the issue

with this is each has its own regulations which can contradict each other.

It is essential that you look into these rules and regulations in thorough detail as this can break your business and it can also resort to you being fined. These regulations cover every aspect of your business, whether it is tax returns or hiring your employees, it all needs sorting. 

Hiring Employees Internationally

No matter if you are opening an office internationally or just having people working remotely in different countries, it is key to understand who you are hiring ad for what role. Hiring the right person for the job is difficult, but when you are looking for employees in a different country, it gets a bit harder.  When looking internationally for prospective employees, the talent varies hugely due to skills, availability as well as cultural differences. This will show some difficulties so it is best to have a management style in mind for when you are hiring and training.

Fulfilment

If you have a business that makes and sells products for clients, and you plan to operate internationally. You will need to ensure that you have a pre-planned fulfilment strategy in place before you start. An example of this could be a car manufacturer internationalising into a new country. Not only do they need enough equipment and parts to build the cars, but also enough for repairs etc. This will ensure that your customers have a great experience rather than them having to wait months for parts to be imported for their repair.

Logistics is a huge part of your internationalising journey as this will make or break you. It varies from warehousing, shipping, production or even packaging, you need to find a quality, yet budget-friendly logistic services to ensure smooth runnings.

Packaging

When internationalising a business, the packaging is a huge part of the overall experience for a customer. International packaging is different as it all depends on where you are based and where you deliver to. There are many regulations globally that affect packaging restrictions, so it is empirical that you meet the right packaging regulations for everywhere you deliver to.

For best practice, you will want to recognise the importance of sustainability in the world of business as this is another thing that will help you build a business internationally. Other legal requirements may be different to where you were originally based such as some countries require disclaimers on their packagings such as cigarettes and alcohol.

Currency

Currency is of course a huge consideration when you internationalise a business, whether this is exchange rates or even how you can use the profits. In the first instance, exchange rates fluctuate all of the time, but sometimes, they fluctuate too much which can be dangerous for a business expanding internationally as the business won’t be able to align prices with the international exchange rate.  This can be dangerous because you may have to sell your product for under the asking price which will, in turn, lead to a deficit.

There are also countries that put restrictions on how you can use the money made from the business as well as taking money out of the country. This means that all the money made from your business may be stuck in that country which makes it much more difficult to meet financial expectations outside that country.

Quality Assurance

Quality is without a doubt the most important thing that a business can keep on track of, if the quality is low this will turn your customers off your company. If the quality is amazing, they will use you again as well as recommend you to friends. This doesn’t mean the quality of your product or service as this should be uniform as you are a brand. It does however mean the standards of cultural quality. This basically means that you may need to alter the quality to appease certain cultures. 

Another quality assurance difficulty is if you are exporting a certain product such as food from a long distance, the chances are that the quality of the food will be damaged, bruised. Put in systems that reduce the risks involved with your quality.

Brand Recognition

Expanding your business to a new country can be a little daunting, one reason is that you’re moving from a country where your brand is well known to a country where nobody knows who you are. This

means that you will need to invest a significant amount of money in advertising to build brand awareness and build a favourable following. Also, branding is very different from country to country such as the brand “Dove” can’t be used in France as it translates to “pigeon”. Something so simple can go so wrong when looking at your branding. Make sure that everything is well thought out before you launch.

What Should I Do Before Internationalising?

Get Credit Insurance

Internationalisation is a risky move, so the first thing that should be at the forefront of your mind is to protect your business. To protect your business financially through the expansion process, it is essential to have the correct insurance. If you are an organisation that sell products or provide services on credit, it is essential that you speak to a professional credit insurance broker so they can ensure you have the relevant cover for the best price available.

Once you have credit insurance, it will protect you against your debtors who can’t pay their cover due to them becoming insolvent or simply cannot afford to pay. This saves you from losing a lot of money whilst also allowing you to get on with growing your business without worrying about financial risk.

Adapt Your Website

If you rely heavily on your site to bring your sales or have a site that is ranking well for your targeted keywords, then the worst thing you can do is create a new site for each country. This will set you up to fail before even starting.  By doing this, you will have to start all over again for your rankings.

If you set up a new site, your rankings will be lost as well as your domain authority meaning that people may not trust your site. Instead, purchase the “.com” domain and create subdirectories for each of the countries that you want to target. An example of this would be “insurancebroker.com/us” for America and “insurancebroker.com/uk” for the United Kingdom.

By creating subdirectories, you will be able to keep all of your existing rankings as well as your authority from the main site and will be filtered throughout your subdirectories. This will also ensure that the correct language and currency are the correct formats for each site visitor no matter where they are in the world. 

Analyse Your Supply Chain

Bad logistics can break a business, and in recent years logistics and supply chains have been a real issue. If you are looking at internationalising your business and you sell a product, you should take a deeper look into your supply chain and how it is going to be affected once you have expanded your customer base.

When a business expands into new countries and is done correctly, it is only natural for your customer base to expand. This can in turn place a strain on your supply chain which will resort to you realising that your current supply chain may not be suitable anymore. If you have any issues with your logistics, whether this is the production of the product, packaging or transport, they will all need to be analysed in detail so that you can have a smooth transition.

The best method to resolve any issues is to analyse each and every step and determine whether things are realistic or not. Then you will be able to calculate the number of products you can sell whilst you are resolving any of your logistic issues.