Keys to internationalisation

General information about a country can indicate marvellous opportunities for foreign investment, but...are there any opportunities for your product? You need to carry out an in-depth investigation of the activity sector of your company, in the target country.

It is very important knowing the technical (technical regulations, legislation applicable to the product) and commercial barriers. The first step is to find out the tariff class of your product, whether quotas exist and the certificates and standardisation required for entry into the country. This information and another set of legalities that must be complied with can cancel the profitability of an operation if you do not know or evaluate them beforehand.

To find out what legislation is applicable and the possible State aid available to national production sectors, you need to consult Governmental web sites, relevant Ministries, and other State institutions related to your production sector.

To find out about tariffs, applicable quota and tax, you can begin by:

• Market Access Database, offering information about tariff and non-tariff barriers in a multitude of countries, tariff codes and import formalities.
• The Export Helpdesk is an Internet service provided by the European Commission to facilitate access by developing countries to European Union markets.
• TARIC, here you can find information about tariffs, tax and quotas.
• On the web page of USA Customs Department you can find very important tariff information if you are targeting this market.
• The organisation UNCTAD of the United Nations allows you to query statistics about imports and exports world-wide. From the statistical database “Trains” you can obtain statistics about importing products or different countries around the world.

To find out about your competition, you need to investigate which companies make and sell the same product as you, their origin and the market quota they have with the objective of finding a segment that has not been covered or to prepare a strategy. You need to focus your investigation on the information of your sector in the market you are targeting.

Remember that one of the functions of foreign trade research grant holders in different countries across the world, is to prepare sectorial reports about production and development in specific activities in the country in which they are serving. To consult these reports and find out at first hand about your competitors go to:

• Foexga. in the section on “Market Analysis”, you can view the market analysis done by Galician research grant holders abroad.
• Icex. Go to section on “Sector Documents”; here you will find market analysis, reports about fairs and other documents of interest.

If you do not find the information you need, do not hesitate to raise a direct query with the Spanish Trade Offices abroad.

You need to know what is the best way to distribute your products in the target country. If you search thoroughly at the market analysis consulted, you can find information about the passage of a product, from production or import to end consumer.

How and where to buy? Who makes the decision to buy? What is the average expenditure on your product? These and other questions require answers to correctly target your products correctly at the end consumer.

This web site of the US Government, offers information about population pyramids all around the world, statistics and other related data. http://www.census.gov.

World Bank web site, http://www.worldbank.org , in the section on “Data & Research” you can find statistics on different countries. You can view this page in different languages, including Spanish, but the content varies with respect to the content in English.

With all this information, and analysing key product or service information you can estimate the demand for the product or service in the target market. Once you have calculated the total demand, you can perform an in-depth analysis of market expectation, and the total market quota you can supply.

Sales prediction is calculated on the basis of the following parameters:

• What products will sell?
• When will they sell?
• Where will they be sold?
• Do you have sufficient production capacity to meet demand?

When you have answers to these questions, you can analyse the sales forecast for your product in the market, not forgetting that the sales forecast is directly related to financial predictions. A correct demand forecast  means you will be more competitive in the market, optimising your resources when supplying national and foreign customers.

• Researching the country
• Our product in the country