Planning to expand? Here’s how to manage an overseas business
In today’s globalized world, expanding your business overseas is easier than ever. Or so you would think! Indeed, moving your business or expanding to a new country is now facile because you have the infrastructure and logistics to do it quickly. Moreover, governments around the world also support new businesses that come from abroad with lower taxes. However, going global with your business can seem a long way from doing business in your hometown.
There are several new challenges that you must understand and overcome, including the different cultures, audience, and regulations. If you are seeking international growth but feel intimidated to move your business to an entirely new market, here are a few tips to help you understand how to manage an overseas company:
Get online
In today’s digitalized world, not having a robust online presence is almost like you don’t even exist on the market. Why? Because today’s customers use technology more than ever before. And, they expect businesses to be in the online world. Having a strong online presence involves many steps, from building a company’s website to being present on social media platforms, and reaching your customers using online marketing strategies from diversifying their payment methods. With a focus on the latter, more and more shoppers now buy bitcoin with credit card to benefit from the advantages of shopping with crypto, like pseudonymous transactions, low fees, and no need for a third party’s involvement.
This step is essential for all businesses, no matter if they are local or foreign businesses, big or small, or from which industry they are. The modern world is all about the digital, and failing to conform to this means falling behind.
Global business growth involves connectivity, be it with your customers, remote employees, and business partners. So, actively engaging with all these categories of business contacts must be done using today’s technology, especially if you are running your overseas business from your home base.
Research the market
First things first, before expanding your business, you must be aware that you are entering a completely new terrain that you know nothing about. Performing market research involves finding out all the information about the new market that can help you set up a successful business approach.
First of all, find out information about the industry of your business. How many competitors will you have on the market? What are their advantages and disadvantages? Are your products or services in high demand? What is the right pricing for the market? This information will help you understand whether your business has growth opportunities or not.
Secondly, business success highly depends on your customers. So, research and understand your audience. Start by finding out whether your target audience is familiar with what you are offering. Next, focus on drawing the profile of your buyer persona to get a better understanding of your audience. Knowing relevant information about your buyer persona, including gender, age, interests, consumer’s behavior, education, and economic status, will help you create an effective marketing strategy.
Get familiar with the paperwork
Even if you don’t like it, you must get to the boring but essential part. And, that is getting familiar with the new country’s policies, laws, and regulations. Expanding your business overseas involves a lot of legal hoops that you must jump on your way to setting up your business in a new market.
Dealing with paperwork in a new country can be discouraging, especially for new entrepreneurs. However, most governments have policies that support businesses that come from abroad to help them accommodate the legal and business environments more efficiently. So, don’t panic when it comes to adjusting to the country’s policies.
You first must learn the different tax codes, business regulations, and packaging standards in the new market. Next, you need to check the global e-invoicing compliance regulations. Every country processes e-invoices differently, be it by applying different values of VAT, archiving invoices, or applying digital signatures. So, when you are going global with your business, learn how to meet government compliance regulations for both sending and receiving electronic invoices.
Pay attention to the language and cultural differences
This is a tricky one that often plays the role of the biggest challenge in the expansion process. Why is it so tricky? Understanding cultural differences can be challenging, and if you fail to do that, you may have the wrong business approach, which affects your impact on the market. According to the founder of Etiquette International, Hila Klinkenberg, less than 25% of businesses that expand abroad are successful. Why? Because entrepreneurs fail to do their homework on how to do business in a different part of the world.
Imagine this: you bring a new product to a market where the culture is against it or finds it offensive. How do you think the market will react to that? Most probably, your business will quickly go bankrupt because you failed to understand the cultural differences.
Also, expanding your business overseas means creating new business contacts, be it business partners, suppliers, employees, and, obviously, customers. So, you must also pay attention to the language differences. Something that may have a specific meaning in your language may seem offensive or have a completely different sense in the language of the country you are expanding to. And, make no mistake, such things can lead to a long series of unpleasant events and chaos due to the misinterpretation of your words.
Understanding language differences is particularly important in the legal process of starting and running a business. Most legal terms have the same meaning worldwide. However, there might exist some differences, and you should know about them.
So, when going global with your business, you may want to become friends with locals who can explain all cultural differences, and a professional lawyer, and translator who can help you throughout the legal process.
Entering the international business arena can seem intimidating. The global expansion journey can also be treacherous. However, a business expansion might be the golden ticket in today’s globalized world that will bring you unlimited growth opportunities.
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