Many service industry sectors have internationalized over the past thirty years. This includes legal, health care, architecture, engineering, accounting, and business consulting among plenty of other industries. This is partly due to the rapid pace of globalization over the past few decades. Services needed to follow their clients wherever they were setting up new operations. It started with the larger firms and companies. Now the opportunities have spread to service-sector entrepreneurs.

Follow to New Markets or No?

I suggest finding the answer to this question by looking first inside your business.

What are your long-term goals for this company? Are you planning to grow your company or firm into something large or keep it small and simple?

What are your firm’s strengths? Are these strengths that would play well or poorly in a market away from your home country? Likewise, are there weaknesses that would make international markets problematic, such as current workload capacity or specializations?

Local Partners?

If international markets make sense from a strategic perspective, then next consider if you need a local partner to enter markets or if you could go in without local representation. If your company is in a healthy financial position, you may want to even consider acquiring a local firm in order to gain instant local clients. (Check to see if any local foreign ownership laws apply.) Most will need partners in order to understand local market preferences and for local language and cultural background. You can find potential partners by either attending international industry conferences or trade shows and by working with your local consulates in-country.

For the original article, please visit http://www.the-international-entrepreneur.com/

( Vivian )13 Apr,2012

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