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Is your business ready to go global?

If your company has successfully established a local customer base, you might find yourself thinking: "what's next?" For many business owners, the answer lies abroad, in expanding internationally.

While going global could be exactly what your company needs to take its success to the next level, it is much more challenging than simply opening an office in a new location or telling your customers you also ship overseas. You'll have a new set of factors to consider that do not affect local-only businesses, which can create a gap between companies that could potentially benefit from the expansion and those that are properly equipped to make the transition.

To determine whether your business is truly ready to put a stake in an international market, here are a few questions you should ask yourself:

  • Does a customer base exist in the areas you want to enter? Just because a product sells well in your local area does not mean the customer base exists in other countries as well. Before you choose new territories in which to do business, you must first make sure the type of customers you have successfully reached at home also exist in the new market. This research takes a good deal of time and effort, but is a commitment you must make early in the process of expanding.
  • Is the new target market compatible with your current, domestic market? While the foreign market you're looking to enter will surely differ from the business environment at home, choosing a market in which there are a good deal of similarities will make the transition easier. Trade barriers, proximity, currency and culture could be difficult to overcome if treated as afterthoughts. It might also be necessary to adjust your product to the local market and culture.
  • Do you have the resources and staff available to focus on both expansion and your established business?  Establishing a new arm of a business abroad takes an exorbitant amount of time and effort from its employees. Adding this stress to your current staff could not only jeopardize the success of your objectives internationally, but could also threaten your ability to grow locally. Before you decide to expand, make sure your business is financially and structurally equipped to take on new staff members to handle the new growth.

When hiring in preparation for an international expansion, adding a team lead who is familiar with the new market can prove invaluable. These candidates can be difficult to reach, however, especially when companies are still in the early phases of growth. Working with a global executive search firm can help you find and bring these assets on board early, so that they can lend their experience to every stage of  expansion.

Finding people is easy, but finding the RIGHT people is not. YES Partners helps companies FIND the right people for all company functions, across many industries and globally.

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