Overseas expansion

In today’s global economy, overseas expansion has become a crucial part of companies' growth strategies. To stay competitive, a company is compelled to look beyond its national shores to expand overseas and exploit attractive international business opportunities. To do so, a company needs to understand not only the diverse economic/business issues in the foreign markets, but also assess what those conditions would mean in terms of product adaptation/development, resource management, customer/partner management: an endless array of other considerations.

This is a challenge faced not only by smaller companies but also bigger and more established companies. In fact even MNCs are recognizing that they are not able to purely rely on their own internal resources to keep up with the speed and complexity of changes in the international marketplace.

Pervasive acceptance of new communication technologies has made the world a smaller place. The upside to this phenomenon is that the international business playing field has been more leveled for all companies, big or small. Companies are no longer inhibited by their size, to expand overseas and tap on lucrative global business opportunities.

It also means that international competitiveness has become a business imperative: a company cannot stay viable (even on one’s own backyard) if it does not think or act global.

To keep up and stay ahead of the competition, forward looking companies such as Procter & Gamble (P&G) are tapping on international resources (made possible with new internet trends and technologies) outside of its organisation to help fuel innovation and create viable products. P&G is a regular user/endorser of various internet mass collaboration initiatives such as InnoCentive, which allows companies to seek solutions from international resources. Through accessing such resources, P&G has been able to accelerate the development of its products.1

Government effort is also a crucial factor in helping companies to expand overseas. For example, the Singapore government has created a portal called the iadvisory to provide companies with free expert advice on overseas expansion.2

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