The long term goal of every business is growth and expansion. In today's world, technology has made it easy for businesses to expand even beyond their borders into other countries.
This is an excellent opportunity because businesses can break into new markets, increase their customer base, diversify their operations, and gain a competitive advantage.
Whichever one you are hoping to achieve, here are five tips to help you expand your business overseas.
Learn About the Country
Before expanding your business to a new country, you need to learn about the country. This means tons of research. Remember that you're trying to introduce your product to a new space, so you need to know as much as you can about that space. A few questions that can guide your research are;
· What is the economic situation of this country?
· What is the political situation of this country?
· What can I find out about the people who live there? This should include socio-economic classes, median income, etc
· Do the people in this place need my product?
· Would it benefit my business to expand to this country?
Expansion is a costly endeavor, and you don't want to enter a market in a country you know next to nothing about.
Study Your Competitors
You'll have competitors in the new country you're planning to expand to, and if you want to make sales, you'll need to study them. You want to know what they are doing, what strategies they use, and what prices they sell their products.
Studying your competition is especially important for setting a price. The last thing you want is to set a price that differs so much from your competition's price. You can either sell at the same price or a lower price to get a corner of the market.
Have an Easy Mode of Payment
There will always be a currency hurdle when you expand your business to a foreign country. This would affect payment methods for your target customers. A good strategy when expanding is to have a payment process that is easy to use and seamless.
A lot of businesses fail to do this, and it has cost them their customers. No one wants to go through a complicated payment process before purchasing a product or service.
You should partner with a fintech company that can offer you everything you need to conduct business in multiple foreign countries. We offer a full package that includes international pay, international payments, cross border payments, transactional FX, and collections. Contact us for any advice you need, we are always happy to help.
Employ Bilingual Staff
You can't be ready to expand your business to a foreign market without tackling one pesky little detail – language.
How do you converse with potential investors and have meetings with on-ground staff when there's a clear language barrier?
Here's a hint. You don't have to learn a new language each time you expand your business overseas. A quick way to take care of the language barrier is to employ people on your staff who are bilingual. They can listen in on meetings and act as an interpreter.
Find out about Tax and Legal Regulations
Every country has its tax, employment, and legal regulation. Before expanding to any country, find out their regulations so you don't run into problems with the law. That would make for a dramatic introduction into the country, albeit a bad one. Also, find out if the country has employee protection laws, legal rules, and tax regulations.
Expanding a business overseas can be daunting at first, but with the proper guidelines and tips, it'll be easy to break into new markets in new countries.
