Issues


Issue: There Is A Failure To Learn From Other Product Launches

This occurs when products are assigned to individual product managers and there is a lack of communications among the managers. Also, the organization may not take the cultural factors seriously and so do not emphasize this in product planning.

Impact

The same failures may recur many times before the company becomes aware of the problem and its severity and impact. After the product is launched, the firm may only look at overall sales and ignore the behavior in specific, detailed markets. This risks alienating the people in that country for other products. That is what happened with the automobile and drug store examples.

Prevention

Planning is the key. It must include in-country planning as well as headquarters planning. Focus groups and testing should be considered in specific local markets. You also cannot just test in the capital of a country. Other parts of the country may have different languages and cultures. You have to move out into the field.

Action

If a product starts to run into problems, the immediate question is whether it can be salvaged or whether it should be pulled from the market.

Issue: There Is A Lack Of Culture Sensitivity

Many American and European firms still suffer from inflated egos. What sells well in country A should go well in country B. How long was it before American firms began to build cars with the steering wheels on the right-hand side of the car? As soon as they did, sales increased in countries where driving is on the left.

Impact

The first impact is felt in product sales. Then there is sometimes a bigger, negative impact on the company’s image. This has occurred with firms who marketed lower-quality products in a market and then found out that sales of all products were affected.

Prevention

You have to get down to the consumer of the product in the specific part of the foreign nation. You have to think like they do. Remember that they have less available money for spending. One good test is to see what they could buy with the same money instead of your product. This can be a real eye opener.

Action

A sign of a problem can be casual statements made by higher-level executives. These can be very damaging. If there is a problem, then it may require a massive effort to recover. The company name and the brands may have to be changed to create new images.

Issue: Too Much Of The Advertising Is Geared To An Upscale, Western Audience

The Internet has increased this issue. People often tend to think of advertising as universal. After all, look at CNN or the BBC. However, for all of this, the local markets are often quite different. The next time you travel overseas, try to view local commercials on television in the local language. These commercials focus on different things and are carried out much differently from western commercials. You may want to think that the world is becoming more homogeneous, but it is still heterogeneous.

Impact

The advertising is often wasted. The impact is not perceptible. The product failed. One flyer that was produced for a market used a variation of the language from another part of the country. The people ignored the advertising because it was not from their area.

Prevention

Testing of the advertising is essential. The true test is to target local media in the local language.

Action

If you see that the advertising is not working, then you want to increase the staff in the country to learn from the problems. Don’t just retreat.

Issue: How The Product Marketing Is Handled Is Inconsistent Between Countries

It is desirable to have product marketing different between countries. That reflects the cultural and language differences. However, consistency is another matter. You must work to have consistency since there is enough communications on the Internet and by other means that a mistake here can be costly.

Impact

People will tend not to believe the marketing if there is an inconsistent message. This can depress sales over time.

Prevention

A good idea is to develop a list of key product attributes and characteristics. Make this the rows of a table. The columns of the table are the countries in which you are going to market the product. The entries are the details of how the characteristic will be marketed. This will improve consistency and can be used to help train people to sell the product in different countries.

Action

Once you detect one inconsistency, you have to assume that there are others. Therefore, it is a good idea to conduct a review of the marketing for all of the countries.

Issue: There Is A Lack Of Coordination During The Marketing In Different Areas

Market planning may be centrally coordinated. However, the launch of the product in a specific country may be left with a franchise or local office. They may feel that they are on their own. There may be little contact between and among the various offices during the marketing campaign.

Impact

Lessons learned are lost because of the lack of communications. This may mean that the same mistakes are committed multiple times. It also means that good, valuable lessons learned are lost.

Prevention

There should a forum for sharing information among the countries. An intranet chat room fits this well. Salespeople can log their negative and positive experiences in marketing the new product.

Action

Unless there is a mechanism for sharing information along with management support, there is likely to be little sharing. To test out the situation you can visit several countries and see what their experiences are. You can then infer if there is sharing and can then encourage it.

Issue: There Is Insufficient Follow-Up After The Product Is Launched

You are probably thinking here of a follow-up marketing effort. However, what is meant here is gathering lessons learned for later work. In order to do this, there has to be more than management support. There must be a lessons learned database along with a method for using, updating, and applying it on a regular basis. Management must require that this database be employed before the launch of any new product.

Impact

There are missed opportunities. Experience in one country is not gathered and used even for that country. Employees start to feel that each marketing effort is a one-shot deal. Then they begin to think that the company lacks a strategy. Morale starts to sink along with sales.

Prevention

Follow-up should be planned from the start. You want to begin with marketing campaigns and new product launches that are going on now. Management must reward the gathering and use of the experience.

Action

Assuming that there is no follow-up and that you want to do something, one approach is to do limited data collection in several countries where the new product was most and least successful. Develop a list of questions to get started and get going. However, doing this doesn’t ensure success. You have to then apply it to the product marketing in all countries. You can also encourage people to volunteer their experiences.




International Project Management
International Project Management: Leadership in Complex Environments
ISBN: 0470578823
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 154

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