Whether a firm is pursuing a national-market or global-market strategy, culture analysis is interested in increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of its marketing programs within and across foreign markets. It must therefore know to what degree it can use the same product, pricing, promotion, and distribution strategies in more than one market. Unfortunately, there is a conflict in implementing such activity effectiveness and efficiency. Market effectiveness is achieved by adapting marketing programs to the local culture, while doing so will add additional marketing and production costs. Efficiency, on the other hand, is achieved by minimizing marketing program changes across markets. Therefore, the firm minimizes marketing and production costs and strengthens its competitiveness with its competitors. The economic and competitive implications of both goals need to be taken into account when making program adaptation decisions. Both goals depend on understanding the cultural context of each market and the degree to which they are culturally similar. Therefore, global companies need to develop a capability to conduct cross-cultural analysis. Such a capability can help these companies optimally balance the competitive benefits to be derived from effectiveness and efficiency.
To question the usefulness of what has been written to date by academics on the impact of culture on international marketing appear unfair after this review. There is obviously little firm ground on which to stand, and little way, for example, to tell an inquiring business person what she or he should do with her/his price or her/his packaging should she/he attempt to enter the Ruritanian market[1]. Yet, what has so far been done is far from useless since at least it sensitibilizes the interested party to the relevance of the cultural dimension, and points to some areas of concern in terms of specific cultural variables and their likely incidence on marketing variables.
There is no doubt that the international marketing process do faces a large set of variables as it take place over different countries and it does act in different environments. One of the most determinant environments to the success of the international marketing process is Culture, which hold the reason for many human acts and behaviour. Reaching to that point international marketer should study deeply culture treaties of a country the company is planning to act in. so that special amendments in the organization overall plans and actions is made to act in accordance with the new market variables.
[1] Jean-Emile Denis,” Culture and International Marketing Mix Decisions”, University of Geneva
To question the usefulness of what has been written to date by academics on the impact of culture on international marketing appear unfair after this review. There is obviously little firm ground on which to stand, and little way, for example, to tell an inquiring business person what she or he should do with her/his price or her/his packaging should she/he attempt to enter the Ruritanian market[1]. Yet, what has so far been done is far from useless since at least it sensitibilizes the interested party to the relevance of the cultural dimension, and points to some areas of concern in terms of specific cultural variables and their likely incidence on marketing variables.
There is no doubt that the international marketing process do faces a large set of variables as it take place over different countries and it does act in different environments. One of the most determinant environments to the success of the international marketing process is Culture, which hold the reason for many human acts and behaviour. Reaching to that point international marketer should study deeply culture treaties of a country the company is planning to act in. so that special amendments in the organization overall plans and actions is made to act in accordance with the new market variables.
[1] Jean-Emile Denis,” Culture and International Marketing Mix Decisions”, University of Geneva
No comments:
Post a Comment