Entry Strategy and

Strategic Alliances
 What Are the Basic Decisions Firms
Make When Expanding Globally?
 Firms expanding internationally must decide
1. Which markets to enter
2. When to enter them and on what scale
3. Which entry mode to use
 exporting
 licensing or franchising to a company in the host nation
 establishing a joint venture with a local company
 establishing a new wholly owned subsidiary
 acquiring an established enterprise

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 What Influences
the Choice of Entry Mode?
 Several factors affect the choice of entry mode
including
 transport costs
 trade barriers
 political risks
 economic risks
 costs
 firm strategy
 The optimal mode varies by situation – what
makes sense for one company might not make
sense for another
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 Which Foreign Markets
Should Firms Enter?
 The choice of foreign markets will depend
on their long-run profit potential
 Favorable markets
 are politically stable
 have free market systems
 have relatively low inflation rates
 have low private sector debt

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 Which Foreign Markets
Should Firms Enter?
 Less desirable markets
 are politically unstable
 have mixed or command economies
 have excessive levels of borrowing
 Markets are also more attractive when the
product in question is not widely available
and satisfies an unmet need

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 When Should a Firm
Enter a Foreign Market?
 Once attractive markets are identified,
the firm must consider the timing of entry
1. Entry is early when the firm enters a
foreign market before other foreign firms
2. Entry is late when the firm enters the
market after firms have already
established themselves in the market

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 Why Enter a
Foreign Market Early?
 First-mover advantages include
 the ability to preempt rivals by establishing a
strong brand name
 the ability to build up sales volume and ride
down the experience curve ahead of rivals
and gain a cost advantage over later entrants
 the ability to create switching costs that tie
customers into products or services making it
difficult for later entrants to win business

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 Why Enter a
Foreign Market Late?
 First-mover disadvantages include
 pioneering costs - arise when the foreign
business system is so different from that in
the home market that the firm must devote
considerable time, effort and expense to
learning the rules of the game
 the costs of business failure if the firm,
due to its ignorance of the foreign
environment, makes some major mistakes
 the costs of promoting and establishing a
product offering, including the cost of
educating customers
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 On What Scale Should a Firm
Enter Foreign Markets?
 After choosing which market to enter and the
timing of entry, firms need to decide on the
scale of market entry
 firms that enter a market on a significant scale make
a strategic commitment to the market
 the decision has a long term impact and is difficult
to reverse
 small-scale entry has the advantage of allowing a
firm to learn about a foreign market while
simultaneously limiting the firm’s exposure to that
market

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 Is There a “Right” Way to
Enter Foreign Markets?
 No, there are no “right” decisions when
deciding which markets to enter, and the
timing and scale of entry - just decisions
that are associated with different levels of
risk and reward

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 How Can Firms
Enter Foreign Markets?
 These are six different ways to enter a foreign
market
1. Exporting – a common first step for many
manufacturing firms
 later, firms may switch to another mode
2. Turnkey projects - the contractor handles every
detail of the project for a foreign client, including
the training of operating personnel
 at completion of the contract, the foreign client is
handed the "key" to a plant that is ready for full
operation

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 How Can Firms
Enter Foreign Markets?
3. Licensing - a licensor grants the rights to
intangible property to the licensee for a
specified time period, and in return, receives a
royalty fee from the licensee
 patents, inventions, formulas, processes, designs,
copyrights, trademarks
4. Franchising - a specialized form of licensing in
which the franchisor not only sells intangible
property to the franchisee, but also insists that
the franchisee agree to abide by strict rules as
to how it does business
 used primarily by service firms

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 How Can Firms
Enter Foreign Markets?
5. Joint ventures with a host country firm - a
firm that is jointly owned by two or more
otherwise independent firms
 most joint ventures are 50–50 partnerships
6. Wholly owned subsidiary - the firm owns
100 percent of the stock
 set up a new operation
 acquire an established firm

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 Why Choose Exporting?
 Exporting is attractive because
 it avoids the costs of establishing local manufacturing
operations
 it helps the firm achieve experience curve and
location economies
 Exporting is unattractive because
 there may be lower-cost manufacturing locations
 high transport costs and tariffs can make it
uneconomical
 agents in a foreign country may not act in exporter’s
best interest

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 Why Choose a
Turnkey Arrangement?
 Turnkey projects are attractive because
 they are a way of earning economic returns from the
know-how required to assemble and run a
technologically complex process
 they can be less risky than conventional FDI
 Turnkey projects are unattractive because
 the firm has no long-term interest in the foreign
country
 the firm may create a competitor
 if the firm's process technology is a source of
competitive advantage, then selling this technology
through a turnkey project is also selling competitive
advantage to potential and/or actual competitors

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 Why Choose Licensing?
 Licensing is attractive because
 the firm avoids development costs and risks
associated with opening a foreign market
 the firm avoids barriers to investment
 the firm can capitalize on market opportunities without
developing those applications itself
 Licensing is unattractive because
 the firm doesn’t have the tight control required for
realizing experience curve and location economies
 the firm’s ability to coordinate strategic moves across
countries is limited
 proprietary (or intangible) assets could be lost
 to reduce this risk, use cross-licensing agreements

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 Why Choose Franchising?
 Franchising is attractive because
 it avoids the costs and risks of opening up a foreign
market
 firms can quickly build a global presence
 Franchising is unattractive because
 it inhibits the firm's ability to take profits out of one
country to support competitive attacks in another
 the geographic distance of the firm from its
franchisees can make it difficult to detect poor quality

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 Why Choose Joint Ventures?
 Joint ventures are attractive because
 firms benefit from a local partner's knowledge
of the local market, culture, language,
political systems, and business systems
 the costs and risks of opening a foreign
market are shared
 they satisfy political considerations for market
entry

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 Why Choose Joint Ventures?
 Joint ventures are unattractive because
 the firm risks giving control of its technology
to its partner
 the firm may not have the tight control to
realize experience curve or location
economies
 shared ownership can lead to conflicts and
battles for control if goals and objectives
differ or change over time

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 Why Choose a
Wholly Owned Subsidiary?
 Wholly owned subsidiaries are attractive
because
 they reduce the risk of losing control over core
competencies
 they give a firm the tight control in different countries
necessary for global strategic coordination
 they may be required in order to realize location and
experience curve economies
 Wholly owned subsidiaries are unattractive
because
 the firm bears the full cost and risk of setting up
overseas operations

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Which Entry Mode Is Best?
Advantages and Disadvantages of Entry Modes

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 How Do Core Competencies
Influence Entry Mode?
 The optimal entry mode depends on the nature
of a firm’s core competencies
 When competitive advantage is based on
proprietary technological know-how
 avoid licensing and joint ventures unless the
technological advantage is only transitory, or can be
established as the dominant design
 When competitive advantage is based on
management know-how
 the risk of losing control over the management skills
is not high, and the benefits from getting greater use
of brand names is significant

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 How Do Pressures for Cost
Reductions Influence Entry Mode?
 When pressure for cost reductions is high,
firms are more likely to pursue some
combination of exporting and wholly
owned subsidiaries
 allows the firm to achieve location and scale
economies and retain some control over
product manufacturing and distribution
 firms pursuing global standardization or
transnational strategies prefer wholly owned
subsidiaries

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 Which Is Better –
Greenfield or Acquisition?
 The choice depends on the situation
confronting the firm
1. A greenfield strategy - build a subsidiary
from the ground up
 a greenfield venture may be better when the
firm needs to transfer organizationally
embedded competencies, skills, routines,
and culture

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 Which Is Better –
Greenfield or Acquisition?
2. An acquisition strategy – acquire an
existing company
 acquisition may be better when there are
well-established competitors or global
competitors interested in expanding
 The volume of cross-border acquisitions
has been rising for the last two decades

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 Why Choose Acquisition?
 Acquisitions are attractive because
 they are quick to execute
 they enable firms to preempt their competitors
 they may be less risky than greenfield ventures
 Acquisitions can fail when
 the acquiring firm overpays for the acquired firm
 the cultures of the acquiring and acquired firm clash
 anticipated synergies are slow and difficult to achieve
 there is inadequate pre-acquisition screening
 To avoid these problems, firms should
 carefully screen the firm to be acquired
 move rapidly to implement an integration plan

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 Why Choose Greenfield?
 The main advantage of a greenfield
venture is that it gives the firm a greater
ability to build the kind of subsidiary
company that it wants
 But, greenfield ventures are slower to
establish
 Greenfield ventures are also risky

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 What Are Strategic Alliances?
 Strategic alliances refer to cooperative
agreements between potential or actual
competitors
 range from formal joint ventures to short-term
contractual agreements
 the number of strategic alliances has
exploded in recent decades

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 Why Choose
Strategic Alliances?
 Strategic alliances are attractive because they
 facilitate entry into a foreign market
 allow firms to share the fixed costs and risks of
developing new products or processes
 bring together complementary skills and assets that
neither partner could easily develop on its own
 help a firm establish technological standards for the
industry that will benefit the firm
 But, the firm needs to be careful not to give
away more than it receives

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 What Makes
Strategic Alliances Successful?
 The success of an alliance is a function of
1. Partner selection
 A good partner
 helps the firm achieve its strategic goals and
has the capabilities the firm lacks and that it
values
 shares the firm’s vision for the purpose of the
alliance
 will not exploit the alliance for its own ends

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 What Makes
Strategic Alliances Successful?
2. Alliance structure
 The alliance should
 make it difficult to transfer technology not
meant to be transferred
 have contractual safeguards to guard
against the risk of opportunism by a partner
 allow for skills and technology swaps with
equitable gains
 minimize the risk of opportunism by an
alliance partner

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 What Makes
Strategic Alliances Successful?
3. The manner in which the alliance is
managed
 Requires
 interpersonal relationships between
managers
 cultural sensitivity is important
 learning from alliance partners
 knowledge must then be diffused through
the organization

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