Project Overview
Business Strategy Marketing DesignMy Role
In 2017, during my MBA, I worked as a business strategist and design consultant to provide an SME with international strategy that will help secure buyer leads and enables the business to develop strong export partnerships with foreign agents or distributors.
The Challenge
Access to a simplified internationalization strategy
How could technology be used to simplify the strategy development and foreign distributor selection processes for micro-firms like NEEM who were in pursuit of internationalization?
This UK based skin and body care brand was looking to start reaching customers across Europe and it’s founder felt the need to develop a strong strategy that will position the brand effectively in European markets.
Summary
Using academic and secondary research, I developed a framework that makes international strategy development for SMEs simple, accessible and functional while increasing the rate of success through a customized foreign distributor selection process.
The research covered development process affecting factors, government/external affecting factors and other common barriers faced.
In depth analysis on key areas such as strategic orientation and strategy development were also explored, but the critical part focused on the role of key decision-makers play in strategy development for SME’s and the strategic selection of foreign distributors to successfully complete a strategy.
Approach
- Stakeholder Interviews
- Competitor Scan
- SWOT Analysis
- Market Insights
- Wire-framing
- Rapid Prototyping (Paper)
Final Thoughts
Research and the initial testing of the developed framework showed how Neem Sunita Passi went from making decisions in an ad-hoc manner to having a rational strategy in hand with which they could follow through to achieve key international growth objectives.
With strategy in place and supporting tools and materials to increase lead-to-buyer conversion rates provided by UKTI, NSP was put in a prime position to successfully solidify their international presence in European markets.