Screening in context

There are 230 national markets in the world. The process of selecting foreign markets for export, sales or manufacturing is complex. Until now, selection has been based less on rigorous research methods, and more on intuition and random factors.

The conventional approach

The typical approach to export market selection is to identify a country, conduct in-depth research, then the business either accepts or rejects that country. The initial identification is typically based on receipt of an unsolicited order, a language proficiency, ethnic origins, trade scuttlebutt, and so on. Almost no organisations undertake quantitative analysis – but then, scientifically based quantitative analysis has not been possible until very recently.

There are three weaknesses in the conventional approach. First, since only a few countries were assessed, it's likely that there was a better one amongst all the countries not considered. Second, the country selection has not been adjusted to suit the business' unique levels of abilities, goals and values. Third, country selection exceeds the computational ability of our human brains, so the calculations need to be quantified and computerised.

The result is forgone sales, excess effort from entering a more difficult market than necessary, market entry failures, and constrained strategic options. These are high costs.

Breaking new ground

Recent research has uncovered how to operationalise comprehensive screening of all the world's countries.

The screening stage can now produce a short-list of the most attractive countries (say, three). Screening assesses all countries, principally using secondary data, and using variables which do not presume a particular mode of entry (distribution method).

The in-depth research stage involves a thorough examination of the attributes of the few countries identified by screening. This stage uses both primary and secondary data, its objective being to (1) select the preferred country and (2) choose the best mode of entry.

Our expertise encompasses the first stage - foreign market screening. It is based on ground-breaking research and extensive experience in international marketing.

For the second stage, we suggest you consider an in-depth specialist such as Austrade.