Advisory No 4 - REGIONAL STRATEGY - DON'T DITCH THE DETAIL

In the global economy, it is essential that we think about extending our reach.  Our job as leaders is to plan for growth in lucrative new markets whenever and wherever we can.

All too often in business though, we talk about our APAC strategy, our BRIC Strategy or our LATAM strategy. We have big plans and confident budgets but have we thought through the detail?

There are many emerging markets opening up for new products and services around the world and they can represent huge leaps in the growth of our business.  If we skip the detail however, it will have a huge impact on our bottom line with unforeseen costs, delayed revenues and much shareholder concern about how far away we are from those ‘rivers of gold’ we were promising just a few months prior when we submitted the business plan.

What we must always keep in mind is that regions like APAC and LATAM are not places in their own right.  Without exception they are a spectrum of cultures and behaviours with vastly different technical, educational and professional maturities.  No country in a region will automatically behave in the same way as its neighbour and we’d be foolish to plan in that way.  

The mistake of any emerging market business plan is to budget on the region rather than taking time to prioritise, research and analyse the individual markets themselves.  

It’s only by avoiding a generic view and understanding both the commonalities and the differences between countries that we can hope to operate successfully and understand markets so different from our own.

If you are rolling out a new regional strategy, take the time to do your homework, knuckle down on the detail and you’ll watch your business grow step by step with fewer unforeseen surprises.

The Advisory Partnership supports broadcast media businesses with their strategic and operational expansion into new markets. 

www.theadvisorypartnership.com