MRKT 4504 Week 11 International Entry Plan Example

Four Gated Phases Into a Composite Southeast Asian Market: An International Entry Plan for a Barbecue Sauce Maker, Built From the Term's Findings, With Costs, Risks by Phase and a Stated Exit

Student Name

Walden University

MRKT 4504: Global Marketing

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Four Gated Phases Into a Composite Southeast Asian Market: An International Entry Plan for a Barbecue Sauce Maker, Built From the Term's Findings, With Costs, Risks by Phase and a Stated Exit

Summary

Ember County Smokehouse, a composite family maker of barbecue sauces near Kansas City, will enter Market A, a composite Southeast Asian market, in four phases. Phase one prepares the product: registration, relabeling and a preservative check, before any commercial shipment. Phase two is a pilot with one supermarket chain in the capital, supported by tastings. Phase three adds a second route, an online marketplace, once supermarket sell-through proves out. Phase four considers licensing a local producer only if volume justifies it. Each phase ends at a gate with a stated test. First-year costs are about $70,000 beyond normal production. If supermarket sell-through stays below 35 percent after two quarters of tastings, Ember County will end regular shipments and treat Market A as a learning exercise.

Phase Chart

Table 1

Entry Phases and Gates

Composite company and market.

The Decisions Behind the Plan

The motive for entering came from Week 1: a crowded home aisle pushes Ember County to grow, and an importer's unsolicited order pulled it toward Market A. That week put the home-market pressure in charge of the decision and the importer's interest in a supporting role, and the plan treats the importer's order as a starting point, not proof.

The market choice came from the Week 2 screening. Using the CAGE framework of Ghemawat (2001), Market A was closer than the larger Market B on cultural, administrative, geographic and economic distance. Market B is deferred, not rejected.

The cultural finding came from Week 3. In Market A, bottled sauce lives on the dinner table beside shared dishes rather than beside a grill. The high- and low-context distinction drawn by Hall (1976) suggested that the label's grill image would speak more loudly than its words. This finding shaped every later decision about label, campaign and channel.

The regulatory work came from Week 4. Using the Codex labeling standard as an anchor, six label elements need relabeling and one, the preservative level, could block entry until confirmed or reformulated. Phase one exists because of this finding.

The entry mode came from Week 6. Direct export to the importer was chosen over licensing and local production, following the step-by-step logic of the Uppsala model (Johanson & Vahlne, 1977). Licensing waits for phase four.

The adaptation brief from Week 7 kept the recipe, brand name and logo and changed the label language, front image, serving suggestion and, in phase three, the bottle size.

The channel comparison from Week 8 chose supermarket chains through the importer first, because sampling in store shows the sauce in its local role and the chains pay reliably. The online marketplace follows in phase three.

The export pricing note from Week 9 traced the price from $2.40 at the factory to about $5.76 on the shelf and recommended FOB Oakland, dollar pricing with six-month reviews and competition with other imported sauces rather than local ones.

The campaign adaptation from Week 10 kept the core claim of smokehouse flavor without effort and rebuilt the scene, tagline and media around family meals and in-store tastings, with the tagline transcreated and back-translated.

Costs

The first year's costs, beyond normal production, are about $70,000, or a little over one percent of current annual sales: $6,300 for the regulatory check, possible reformulation and relabeling; $9,000 for the shopper research proposed in the research memo; about $40,000 for the adapted campaign; and about $15,000 for travel, samples and the importer's launch support. The smaller bottle's tooling, about $6,000, falls in phase three.

Risks by Phase

Each phase carries its own main risk. In phase one, the main risk is registration delay; the plan allows four months, and the importer has registered other American foods. In phase two, the main risk is slow sell-through. The plan treats slow sales first as a problem of use, testing the label and tastings before changing the recipe. In phase three, the risk is that online sales draw shoppers away from the supermarket partner and damage that relationship; the importer will price consistently across both routes. In phase four, the risk is losing control of the recipe; licensing is considered only with audit rights and confidentiality terms.

Exit

The plan states when Ember County would leave. If sell-through at pilot outlets stays below 35 percent after two quarters of tastings and the adapted campaign, regular shipments end. The firm would honor the importer's remaining orders, write up what it learned and return to the question of Market B with that knowledge. Cavusgil and Zou (1994) found that export ventures performed better when firms adapted their marketing to the market and drew on prior international experience, and the exit is designed to preserve that experience even if Market A does not work.

What Comes Next

If the pilot succeeds, the most important next decision is whether to expand to a second market or deepen Market A. The plan recommends deepening Market A for two years before revisiting Market B, so that Ember County's small team is not stretched across two registrations and two importers at once. A family firm with one export coordinator can manage one foreign market well; two at the same stage of entry would divide attention just when each needs it most, and a stumble in either could sour the owners on exporting altogether.

References

Cavusgil, S. T., & Zou, S. (1994). Marketing strategy-performance relationship: An investigation of the empirical link in export market ventures. Journal of Marketing, 58(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299405800101

Ghemawat, P. (2001). Distance still matters: The hard reality of global expansion. Harvard Business Review, 79(8), 137-147.

Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond culture. Anchor Press.

Johanson, J., & Vahlne, J.-E. (1977). The internationalization process of the firm: A model of knowledge development and increasing foreign market commitments. Journal of International Business Studies, 8(1), 23-32. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8490676