Nowadays, many businesses are looking to expand their business not just to other locations within their own countries, but also abroad to the international markets. The internet has made it much easier for us to be able to trade with people regardless of where they are located around the world. If you wish to expand your business to reach these markets, here are some of the considerations you need to make.
(Image Source: Pixabay)
Language and Currency Support
As soon as you know which countries you wish to expand to, you should look into introducing language and currency support for your site. This will make the onboarding of customers in the new location that bit easier to handle.
Let’s take the example here of a well known international brand like William Hill. Though it is a British company, they offer their services to people all over the world. With this comes the need to be able to support the various currencies and languages of the countries that they wish to operate in. Currencies can fluctuate, and things can get lost in translation. Preparing to launch a branch of the business as if it was born straight in that country is always going to be the way forward.
Local Laws
You need to have a fair understanding of the business laws and regulations in the company that you wish to apply to. Just because the regulations state one thing in the UAE does not mean that you will encounter the same thing abroad.
There is no point in undergoing all the work that it takes to expand a business if you are going to slip on some small bureaucratic issue. You need to make sure that everything is done above board and through the correct legal channels. Even something like tax rates that corporations pay within different countries needs to be accounted for, or your company could risk serious ramifications at the hands of the law.
Audience
Expanding to a new country means that you are going to have to contend with a new audience and their expectations. Even neighbouring nations can be very different to one another. Marketing techniques that might work at home might simply not be as effective in this new country.
For example, the UK and the US might seem very similar on paper. However, if you tried to push American-style advertising on British consumers, many of them would be turned off from the product instead of being convinced to try it.
There are so many small cultural differences that you must pay attention to when creating marketing for a new audience. You would not want to accidentally offend someone due to a detail in your content.
Employees
If you want to operate overseas, it is always wise to have either an office or a few key remote workers in the country that you are expanding to. Nowadays, it is fairly straightforward to track down and hire talent without ever having to meet them face to face.
Try to find people who are local to the country you are expanding to, or who have lived there long enough that they fully understand how things work. This can help with some of the other points mentioned above, especially if they are a native speaker of the country’s main languages.
These are all key considerations that you should make if you wish to expand your business overseas, but they are just the beginning of areas that you need to address. This is likely to be a major enterprise, and – as a business owner – the onus is on you to ensure that it is done correctly.
