INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

International Business



Table of Content

Chapter 1; Background3

Research questions and structure4

Chapter 2; Theoretical framework5

Internal analysis6

Country selection7

External analysis8

Entry mode decision9

The marketing plan11

Chapter 3: Methodology13

Internal analysis13

Country selection14

External analysis14

Entry mode selection15

Chapter 4: Data and Analysis17

Internal analysis17

HiLux517

Country selection18

Entry mode decision18

Marketing plan19

Market segmentation19

Chapter 5: Conclusion20

Internal analysis20

External analysis20

Five forces framework of Porter21

Recommendations21

References23

Chapter 1; Background

The first chapter presents an overview of the whole research. First the background is described, after which the research questions and structure are presented and finally the relevance of the Master thesis is given. Nowadays many companies decide to go international or are already internationalized. Companies produce abroad, get their materials from different countries, sell their products and services abroad or even transfer whole departments to a foreign country. A definition of economic globalization is “the international integration of goods, technology, labour and capital; that is, firms implement global strategies that link and coordinate their international activities on a worldwide basis”.

International business differs from domestic business because crossing boarders means dealing with different environments. There are different drivers for a company to consider when going abroad. Ball, McCulloch, Frantz, Geringer & Minor (2006) formulated five drivers: political, technological, market, cost and competitive drivers. AmStar-Europe B.V. is a joint venture of AmStar Surface Technology from Houston, the United States and Hilux5 from Hengelo, the Netherlands. AmStar Surface Technology wants to expand to Europe but needed some assistance to realize it.

They contacted HiLux5 and together they set up a joint venture AmStar-Europe. AmStar-Europe penetrates the European market with the product of AmStar Surface Technology's using the industry knowledge of HiLux5. AmStar-Europe needs an International Market Entry strategy to guide the internationalization.

Research questions and structure

The following aspects are considered in order to come to the problem formulation. - The objective is to develop an International Market Entry strategy for AmStar- Europe to analyse and describe where and how AmStar-Europe should enter the European market and how they should sell their product in the target country. - The product can be used in different industries were erosion and corrosion problems occur in high temperature environments, but because HiLux5 is specialized in the Power and Waste to Energy industry, the International Market Entry strategy focuses on this industry only. - This research focuses on countries in Europe and not on regions, because legal requirements and laws differ per country and are considered in this research. - Limited time is available and therefore an International Market Entry strategy plan is written for one country only.

Chapter 2; Theoretical framework

Chapter two focuses on related literature and gives a theoretical framework of the whole research and its individual steps. The theoretical framework focuses on the literature and models that are used in this research. The articles used for the International Market Entry strategy plan as a whole were found using the databases of “JStore” and “Web of Science”. The keywords “International market entry”, “internationalization strategy” and “International strategy” were used to find articles. It was difficult to find many articles. All three articles that were found relevant, after ...