International Business Expansion: A Step-by-Step Guide to Launch Your Company Into Other Countries

International Business Expansion: A Step-by-Step Guide to Launch Your Company Into Other Countries is intended to help you capitalize on these future opportunities. With a little bit of planning, companies of all sizes, including start-up organizations, can quickly become multinationals. As long as you are already generating revenue at home, setting up operations in foreign countries has never been easier.

Whether you are proactively looking for growth or reacting to competitive pressure, it’s time to do something for the long-term success of your business. International Business Expansion will help you make intelligent, well-structured, strategic decisions as you expand your business. It provides a blueprint for:
- researching which markets to enter and when,
- setting clear and realistic goals that take into account the uniqueness of each market,
- evaluating various market entry options for both immediate or long-term expansion,
- financially modeling your international business, as ways of doing business differ by country, and
- growing your global business long-term so you can achieve more than just a one-time increase in revenue growth.

Expected Outcome
By the end of this book, you will have the tools to create the vision, build determination and plan your successful international expansion. Specifically, at the conclusion of this book you will be able to
- analyze which markets to enter,
- determine the best ways to enter each market,
- forecast the impact of global expansion on your overall business, and
- plan continued international growth.

If properly planned and executed, global business expansion can be very profitable!

Importance of International Expansion
Over the last 30 years, advances in technology, communications, and transportation have brought the world closer together. Innovations such as the Internet, jet aircraft, and wireless telephony have quickly lowered or even removed former barriers that hindered the flow of goods, capital, ideas, and people from one country to another. This process has entered a new word in our daily vocabulary: globalization. Today, international trade is no longer a luxury available to only Fortune 500 corporations. Companies of all sizes can easily take advantage of globalization and quickly become multinational organizations.

The importance of international markets will continue to grow. While the United States has the largest economy in the world, today its share of global GDP is down to 22% as other nations expand trade. And while the US GDP will continue to expand, its portion of the global economy will keep on shrinking. Over the next 20 years, we can expect the US GDP to fall to only 10 to 15% of the global economy.

The message is: the future is in international trade. By not expanding internationally, you will likely severely limit your business opportunities. For a US company, ignoring international markets means overlooking between 80% and 90% of the potential economic opportunity for growth. If you are a non US-based company focused only on your domestic market, the opportunity loss is even greater! Coupled with the increasing and more predictable global demand, the time is right for you to embrace international expansion.

By 2025, it seems likely that we will see more than 70% of successful companies with sales greater than $10 million to be multinationals with a dedicated presence in at least one other country outside their home nation. Over 50% of multinationals will have offices in at least three continents. Without a global presence, your company may end up being squeezed out of the market.

Anthony Gioeli is a Silicon Valley-based serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience managing fast growth high technology companies, specializing in building and leading global organizations. He has served as President and CEO of three US-based technology companies: CloudTC, Inc., Atrua Technologies, Inc. and AirPrime, Inc. Two of the companies (CloudTC and AirPrime), were acquired by foreign corporations, and the third generated over 80% of its business overseas.

Anthony also served as a division General Manager at Xircom, and as VP of Sales, Marketing and Business Development at several companies in the technology industry that were headquartered in Australia, Europe and North America. In his most current position, he is a senior executive of a technology company based in Switzerland. Earlier in his career, Anthony worked at large multinational corporations including AT&T, Compaq Computer Corporation (acquired by Hewlett Packard) and IBM in various roles in engineering, marketing, finance, and sales.

Throughout his career, Anthony’s focus has been on international business. Some of his activities have included setting up an R&D center in China; opening up sales and support offices in Belgium, Germany, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and the UK; establishing joint development agreements with companies in Bulgaria, India, Romania, South Korea, and Taiwan; and forming strategic partnerships with companies in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. Anthony’s educational background consists of earning a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from New York Institute of Technology and an MBA in finance from the University of Southern California.