Changing dimensions of international marketing in borderless business: A look honouring the basics

Dr B K Mukhopadhyay

(The author is a Professor of

Management and Economics, formerly at IIBM (RBI) Guwahati. He can be contacted at m.bibhas@gmail.com)

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs - Farrah Gray

It is a reality that today world trade has assumed an importance hitherto unknown to the global business community. The modern marketer or manager cannot manage a business without looking at the global arena where economic transactions take place even if a marketer decides to confine one’s own business within the national borders. The fact now is: while in the past trade was undoubtedly conducted internationally, but never before did it have the broad and simultaneous impact on nations, firms and individuals that it has today.

In over three decades, world trade zoomed significantly!

What is more, trade growth on a global level has consistently been outperforming the growth of domestic economies in the past few decades, as a result of which many new countries and firms, especially in the emerging economies, have practically located it as highly desirable to become major participants in the international market.

Global marketing (marketing on a worldwide scale reconciling or taking commercial advantage of global operational differences, similarities and opportunities in order to meet global objectives as defined by the Oxford University Press) has, thus, emerged as number one — more so since the emergence of computers and internet has reduced the world to a global village - where producers and customers can just log onto the internet to interact and exchange goods and services, among others.

According to the legend Philip Kotler, ‘international marketing consists of finding and satisfying global customer needs better than the competition, both domestic and international and of coordinating marketing activities within the constraints of the global environment. And that unforgettably we do remember the words’ marketing is that social and managerial process aimed at satisfying needs and requirements through processes of creation and exchange ...’

As is known: international business essentially covers international transaction of economic resources as well as international production of goods and services, and as such the broad forms of business internationalization cover trade, technical collaboration and of course, investment.

Clearly, the heterogeneous environment influencing international trade in this age, in a big way, is required to be scanned simultaneously with framing and implementing strategies so as to fulfill the basic objective of optimizing the country’s wealth both on the part of domestic and international enterprises. For the latter, this is more crucial because of the existence of far greater complexities — situations being different between an industrialized country and a less developed country.

Obviously, a lot depends on not only the financial strategies / the strategies that an international player adopts or should adopt, but also on the technological and production aspects, marketing aspects, as well as human resources management aspects.

Especially, information and communication technologies have affected business organizations in the way they conduct business. If we just glance back we could locate that industrial age business systems were predominantly characterized by bureaucratic procedures and hierarchical and centralized organizational structures, which, in turn, caused delays and inefficiencies. Contrary to that it is the e-business age where companies that have virtually flattened organizational structures coupled with flexible and decentralized arrangements, the utmost requirement is to heavily lean on instant information so as to deliver customized products, among others.

This is the main reason why the requirement has been looming large for going from the analysis of the common strategies to sell a product, to the analysis of the most important economies in which one international firm competes against others, domestic as well as foreign.

Undeniably, not in India alone, international marketing has emerged as a targeted area of highest priority among the progressive nations globally. International business expanded at a jet speed in the current decade – reasons mainly being rapid growth in technology, coming up of supportive institutions, openness of the different economies as well as increase in competition.

It is beyond any shade of doubt that openness of economies, big or small, has been gaining ground — described as total foreign trade (exports plus imports), as a proportion of GDP, and as such the degree of openness of an economy plays the dominant role. Openness of the goods market refers to free exchange of commodities across national boundaries showing and indicating greater interaction with the global market.

Side by side, openness of the factor market also deserves attention — labour and capital have more freedom to choose between domestic and foreign assets. In fact the MNCs are moving their operations with greater ease around the world in search of lower costs. For example, workers can move freely from one country of EU to another without facing many restrictions.

Again, openness of the capital market has been another crucial area so far as international trade in financial assets is concerned. Investors today are free to choose between domestic and foreign assets, and progressive elimination of capital controls is a prominent feature of the ongoing globalization (the increasing integration of national economies into expanding international markets) the world over.

It is also a matter of pride that Indian firms now have greater ability to raise finance abroad to meet the investment needs as well as investing abroad. It is also much easier for foreign investors to acquire assets in India (company’s shares, Government of India bonds, etc). The international financial environment is, thus, the most crucial factor since trade as well as investment involves different currencies as well as funds that are borrowed/lent in different currencies and in different segments of the international financial markets.

The fact is that for both the developed as well as the developing world, marketing high has not only been considered from the point of view of being an integral component in the context of economic development, but as a rich gold-mine also (earning foreign exchange which is described as claims on a country by another held in the form of a currency of that country). If one knows the technique to explore, then the resource is meant for one, of course, in a transparent way also. Reaping adequately from modernized, highly fluid and fast-changing global business/commercial environment does depend on its abundant natural/ human/ technological/ financial resources as well as crucially on the very ability to undertake expanded task of adapting to befitting marketing strategies.

Naturally, the challenge is to create exportable surplus (trade surplus referring to an excess of export receipts over import payments as compared against trade deficit which means an excess of import expenditures over export receipts measured on the current account and also known as merchandize trade deficit) and at the same time producing goods/ rendering services at the least comparative cost — so as to get a strong foothold on the international market in the face of intense competition.

Niket Karajagi: International Product and Service Strategies presents the four dilemmas [a] selling as is in international markets [b] adapting products to specific foreign markets [c]designing a new product for foreign markets and [d] adapting flexible global product with local customization possibilities.

Yes, the mantra remains ‘Go ahead, build borderless products and brands to succeed in the 21st century’.