As your retail IT operations expand into the international space, there will be plenty of diversions to distract you away from taking the proper action towards longevity. You’ll have new regulations, new cultural norms and new competition to deal with. As you navigate these new waters, make sure you avoid these critical mistakes.
1. Prioritizing New Tech Over the Right People
Most likely, the CRM, accounting, and logistics software that you already have can take you into the international marketplace. Modern tech is built to scale (to a degree) and takes a larger view of the world by default.
After all, any company that is looking to supplement its operations with this type of software is probably already doing some sort of international business, even if it’s just one item in the supply chain. If you have a choice, pick specialists who can tweak your old software toys rather than wasting money on new ones.
2. Prioritizing Growth Over Your Longstanding Battle Plan
Globalization is more than a pithy buzzword — it’s a drug. It can be quite a rush to explain how you have expanded into India ahead of your industry at the cocktail party. However, are you covering your margins there? Are you moving into these markets on a whim, following the CNBC crowd, or is your move based on verifiable data that your target market will meet you when you land?
Stable growth also relies on your ability to deliver retail solutions based on trends in the international market rather than in any particular market. For instance, if you’re trying to expand into India, odds are that you will need the same retail IT deployment as some other emerging market in the area.
To optimize your growth, you should look for people who can define a solution for "East Asian trade" rather than "solutions for India." This gives you a long-term battle plan and keeps you from changing your infrastructure every time you want to expand.
3. Forgetting About Your Market Share at Home
As the Harvard Business Review tells us, you must keep your position in your home markets to sustain your expanded investments. Finance is screaming at you to take full advantage of the economies of purchase and scale as much as possible. This is all well and good — if you can maintain your position at home.
It may not be as easy as you think to build market share in emerging markets. Don’t dedicate your best and brightest to the endeavor until your due diligence is complete. Fresh & Easy is one example of a company that puts all of its eggs in its foreign basket, moving its best execs overseas to take over markets they thought would be easy sales. Unfortunately, a mix of local regulations and an inability to overcome stereotypes muffled success overseas. Meanwhile, the lack of talent back home cost them money as well.
4. Getting the Timing Wrong
Your retail IT staff should be at the head strategy table along with your logistics experts. Only then will you be able to properly time deployment in international markets, taking into account the inevitable delays you will face when dealing with foreign entities and software (even the best software). Waiting too long is also a mistake. Windows of opportunity close, and you need an IT staff that can put the gas on an effort if things need to be sped up.
In short, your IT department will end up playing a much bigger part in your global expansion than you think. You owe it to your business to get the right people on your team. Kinettix is one company that will reach out to you, showing you the right specialists at the right time, so you can focus on your long-term strategy rather than on your next hire.
