International Franchise

Student’s name: Blah, Blah
Class & Session:

How can franchises ensure their products are appropriate for international markets?

Professor:

Introduction

Most businesses are formed with the notion to someday expand their product internationally. Better communications and technology gives a massive increase in the convenience of international business ventures. Expanding a business internationally is a gamble but the potential payout can be immense. The payoff far outweighs the risk when you take into account the market you are exposing your product too. This exposure not only gets your merchandise or service to a much larger audience- it increases the lifespan of your product. In this paper, we will discuss international appropriation of a business and it products or services. We will begin with discussing the motivation behind why a local business would want to go global in the first place.
Every product has a wear out/expiration date. What is hot today most certainly will not be hot tomorrow. This is why taking a franchise into the international industry is imperative to its survival. A product may wear out its usefulness in the states but a different country may very well welcome the same product eagerly. An example of this strategy can be seen when multinational corporation, Apple inc., launched the IPhone 4. The IPhone 4 was released in the U.S. and U.K. on June 15, 2010 (Beaumont, 2010). One year later, May 27, 2011, it was released in India (Ershad, 2011). This international franchising increased the lifespan and revenue earned for a single product.
So how does a company achieve such a feat? How can a local business from Barstow, CA take their product over international waters and sell it in Panama City, Panama? The answer is simple; they have to know their market. They have to know what their consumers are consuming. Alex Okosi, an employee of Viacom (The parent company of MTV), used his personal knowledge of his home country of Nigeria and combined it with his business savvy. The outcome was the successful introduction of MTV in Africa (Bovee & Thill, 2012). Okosi knew the consumers of his product, the people of Africa. He knew that his product, music, was very significant in the culture and he used this to make a good business decision.
A successful global business recognizes and respects the differences in culture when dealing internationally. A business must be aware of the “language, social values, ideas of status, decision-making habits, attitudes toward time, use of space, body language, manners, religions, and ethical standards. Ignorance of or indifference to cultural differences is a common cause of communication breakdowns in international affairs” (Bovee & Thill, 2012). Furthermore, the business uses this familiarity with their consumer to better focus this product to them. For example, the SUBWAY on the corner of my street serves the best B.L.T., however if I were to go to the SUBWAY in India I would have the option of having a chicken tandoori sub: localization.

Conclusion
To successfully expand your market internationally it takes adjusting to the environment, studying the culture and its market, and flexibility. Sometimes a business will have to compromise on some of their brand products in order to suit the buyer’s interest. The bottom line with any industry is this: the sellers want to sell and they want the buyers to buy so concession is a necessary evil.

Works sited

Beaumont, C. (2010, June 16). Apple iPhone 4: Pre-orders break records despite

technical issues - Telegraph. Retrieved January 19, 2014, from

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/7833362/Apple-iPhone-4-Pre-

orders-break-records-despite-technical-issues.html

BOVEE, C., & Thill, J. (2012). Bookshelf :. Retrieved January 19, 2014, from

http://devry.vitalsource.com/books/9781269588669/id/ch03box03

Ershad, K. (2011, May 25). Apple iPhone 4 To Be Launched on May 27 By Aircel, Airtel.

Retrieved January 19, 2014, from http://www.pcworld.in/news/apple-iphone-4-

be-launched-may-27-aircel-airtel-49622011