We know best, what companies do best when entering new markets.
Along all companies we have been advising throughout the past 30 years about how to capture the European markets, each and every company we were talking to already had a strong product or service portfolio in place. Most of them even were already operating very successfully in their origin marketplace. The question we have heard the most was in regard to an adopted go to market strategy and how to develop new talents and skills to manage cultural differences. Both topics were identified as key drivers to be successful in an unknown market space with unknown regulations and compliances.
Your products or services might be superior and a lot of people already know your brand in your home market. In Europe, however, you experience difficulties to get your product to market. We have seen this phenomenon many times and in many ways before with companies coming from all around the world approaching the European market.
Sometimes it is the way how people react to new products and services; sometimes it is the challenge to identify potential partners to do business with at all. Organizations usually do benefit from localized professionals who know the market and how to develop business onsite.
Talent and skills are important to market a product or service and to gain stakeholders confidence. Most of the organizations we have been supporting with their long-term projects started with a comprehensive sales representative office in Europe. It was interesting to see that even global players would not start with a big-bang approach. All market entry strategies, and especially those approaches from organizations coming from APAC, were executed in a very careful manner. In the end, all of the companies with a holding abroad were able to establish an astonishing mix of talent developed in Europe and talent imported from their existing mature markets. Sharing knowledge has been one of the key driver to successfully grow their business in Europe.
