International marketing – the issues 611
To export means simply to send or carry
abroad, especially for trade or sale. Inter-
national marketing goes beyond that in intro-
ducing the concept of the end-user, moving the
orientation away from finding sales for a
company’s existing products to analysing the
market and assessing whether the company is
able to produce a product or service (Knight,
1999) for which there is either current or
potential demand, assuming that other factors
can be controlled, such as price, promotion and
distribution. International marketing can be
very profitable but it is a serious business,
which requires the long-term commitment of
resources. It will mean the outlay of a sub-
stantial investment in a foreign market, often
with a long projected payback. This issue of the
planning time horizon is quite crucial. It is
important then to differentiate between a short-
term sales-oriented approach and a longer-term
entry strategy of three to four years, which is
aimed at market building.
Change: present and anticipated
Markets are changing demographically, politi-
cally and economically, and the techniques of
bringing goods to market and arranging financ-
ing, as well as the means of financing them-
selves, are changing. Increasingly, the world
over, economies are being subjected to the same
social, economic, technological and political
forces which shape our own markets. Techno-
logical companies are being ‘born global’
because the nature and specificity of the tech-
nological advantage they possess requires them
to explore an international rather than a domes-
tic market. Certainly there is a characteristic
technological and industry specificity to that
phenomenon (Zahra et al., 2000; Zhao and Zou,
2002). Ohmae (1990) put it rather succinctly in
identifying three global trends which he felt
could not be ignored:
1 Increasing market fragmentation. Today, there
are specialist competitors with tailored
offerings.
2 Traditional market boundaries are blurring with
substitutes from new technologies.
3 The transformation of previously self-contained
national markets into linked global markets.
Ohmae combined these three trends then with
the four ‘I’s which he identified with the ‘border-
less’ economy, namely: Industry, Investment,
Individuals and Information. All of these are
highly mobile resources and so emphasize the
dynamism of the international marketplace.
This thread can be explored further in the work
of Michael Porter, the Harvard economist,
whose views are quite different from those of
Ohmae. Porter’s general work on strategy is dis-
cussed in this book by Wensley. Porter saw
successful internationalization arising from a
successful national competitive advantage. It
was necessary to be successful in the home mar-
ket first. This, however, does not help to explain
the more recent phenomenon of the small highly
competitive niche company which is ‘born
global’, requiring internationalization to fully
exploit its technological niche. Ohmae focused
on the need to be an insider within the devel-
oped market economies of the Triad of Europe,
North America and Japan, comprising a total of
more than 600 million consumers with broadly
similar spending patterns, tastes and desires,
leading then into his thesis of the California-iza-
tion of consumers. Porter shares some similar-
ities but is different, however, and sees the
macro-environment as being shaped by what he
terms currents and cross-currents, as below:
1 Currentswhich drive international competition,
as evidenced by:
a Growing similarity of countries with
universal features, large retail chains, and
TV advertising and credit cards.
b Falling tariff barriers.
c Technological revolutions which reshape
industry and create shifts in leadership.
d Integrating role of technology. Improved
communication dismantles geographical
barriers to trade and improves information
in a world where buyers are increasingly
aware of world markets.