When expanding your business overseas, you need to decide which country or region you want to expand into. With 200 countries and territories in the world, you need to decide where to go. Unless your company has abundant resources, you will basically move into each location one by one.
The following reasons are the criteria for deciding where to enter.
Where the sales of existing businesses are high
When deciding where to expand overseas, it is helpful to know the areas where sales are increasing in existing businesses. It can be said that there are great opportunities to expand into the local area, such as areas where online sales are already occurring and areas where sales from inbound visitors to Japan are increasing. To do this, we analyze the sales of existing businesses and list candidates for expansion based on how much sales are being made in each region.
Where trends change and I think we should strategically advance
It can be said that there is room for growth in regions with economic development such as emerging countries. For example, Vietnam has a particularly high economic growth rate in Southeast Asia, and it is expected that consumption in Vietnam will continue to increase in the future, so it can be said that there is a great opportunity for Japanese companies to enter the market.
In addition, deregulation due to changes in the political system and laws will be an opportunity for overseas companies.
Investigate and determine if the destination is appropriate
If there are candidates for expansion, we will investigate whether there is a possibility of expanding the business at the expansion destination. Even if you judge that the opportunity is large based on the sales of the existing business, the potential market may not be so large in reality. We will judge it by investigation.
Market survey
Investigate the domestic market of the country. In some cases, government agencies, local governments, financial institutions, etc. have issued survey results, and there is also a method of inferring the market size from the IR of locally listed companies.
There is also a method of collecting over-the-counter surveys and questionnaires as local market research. The over-the-counter survey is a survey in which the prices and photos of items sold at the local stores in which they are located are summarized in a report. We will survey the stores in the designated area and carry out surveys such as handling and prices for each product and product category.
This survey method requires you to actually go to the store on site. When conducting an in-house survey, it is necessary for the company’s employees to travel to the site, which tends to increase costs. Alternatively, you can outsource to a local research company or a freelance online worker working locally. If you have the right skills, you can minimize the cost by hiring a free online worker who works locally.
You can also conduct a questionnaire survey.
We will conduct a questionnaire survey on potential local consumers. Target, research your lifestyle, and ask for reports on how to use a particular product line.
By investigating consumption trends with your target consumers, you can measure the potential of your product and guide your marketing practices.
Questionnaire surveys can be a very powerful tool if you can obtain a certain amount of results by using hypothesis making.
To conduct a survey, you must first determine the scope of the survey. You can either ask a local research company to collect the survey from that target, or you can ask a local online worker to survey your network of acquaintances. Online workers register for a variety of services and work globally, so finding local residents with those services can be a significant cost reduction compared to hiring a research firm.
Effective measures and events for market development
We will introduce methods that companies and products planning to expand into the local market can use to estimate the market size and determine new business partners.
Trade fairs and exhibitions
Events for each industry are held in Japan. This is an event where specific industries such as XX trade fairs and XX exhibitions gather at one venue and call their business partners at once. This event benefits both sellers and buyers. In normal times, when exchanging information or negotiating with a specific company, it is necessary to go to the office of each company, which takes time and effort, but if companies of a specific industry are gathered at one venue, one day It is possible to exchange information and negotiate with many companies in specific industries in a few days.
Since these trade fairs and exhibitions are held regularly in cities with a certain market size, we will obtain information on the event from information such as the local chamber of commerce and JETRO, and exhibit if there is one that suits the target. And you can go to business talks. These events are normally charged, but it is important to update the information because some of them are held by government agencies or can be attended for free with subsidies.
