As your business grows and evolves, there may come a point where you start to look internationally. Now, to clarify – we’re not talking about selling internationally from a domestic location, we’re talking about opening and operating an expansion of your business in an international location, and perhaps even taking some of your production overseas.
Not every business is going to find international expansion to be the right move, and even those who feel like they would benefit from it, need to carefully consider a whole variety of factors, legalities, timings, and processes before taking that step.
To put it bluntly, expanding overseas isn’t an action you should generally take unless:
- You’re seeing consistent profitability.
- Have a level of demand that is quantifiable and expected to be sustainable over an extensive period of time.
- Your business has a strong foundation and can cope both with the needs and stresses of the expansion and is capable of remaining standing if the worst happens.
- You have done research or campaigns to determine whether your product/s or service/s are going to be well received, and that there’s a demand for them.
We’re going to look at some of the pros and cons of taking your business international, and how to apply these to your own business, to determine whether expansion overseas is right for you or not.
Benefits of International and Oversea Business Expansion
The Potential for Additional Revenue
Companies who have been trading in one location may have found that their audience is fatigued – this is often the case with businesses offering products with an extended lifecycle or low repurchase opportunities, they find that they have saturated the market and customer numbers, although potentially stable, aren’t growing at a substantial rate.
By opening a company out to international locations, the business potentially has access to millions of new customers, who can be attracted by the quality, reputation, and newness of the offering.
An Extensive New Customer Base
Once in these new areas, the company has the ability to establish themselves in a particular manner, and appeal to specific demographics with targeted advertising. By maintaining a high-quality and good standards, new customers are attracted and reputation developed – this is great for the short term, and for the long term in generating loyalty and seeing the brand being recommended to upcoming age-groups and new demographics by those who’ve developed a loyalty to it.
Entries to New Markets
Not all international markets are the same, and it may be that you need to make variations of your products in order to comply with local laws and regulations – this allows you to connect to new markets, offer new products and services, and increase the range and reach of your brand.