If you've been on the Internet very long, it becomes obvious that
you've entered a global medium. You'll exchange e-mail with people
in Estonia and South Africa, the Netherlands and Singapore. It's
a truly globe-shrinking experience; global village and all that.
But the paradigm shift is much more profound than many small businesses
realize.
Let's say you own a specialty parts business in Tuscaloosa and want to increase
your exposure. Wouldn't it be nice if people could find you on
the Web rather than you spending lots of money for display ads in
the trade magazines? So you get a Web page with visions of the
world beating a path to your door. If it does, will you be ready?
Inadvertently, we are often oblivious to business in countries other than our own. For example, does your e-mail response form have
a field for "country". Mine did, and early on I thought
I would help people fill it out more quickly by making "USA" the default text. Oops. It almost cost me a client in Quebec.
Then I made the mistake of requiring the user to fill in the "State"
field until I learned that many countries don't use that category.
Oops.
Like it or not, when you set up a Web page you just began a global
business! Now you may be a poor global businessperson or an accomplished
one, but you have hung out your shingle to the world. On any given
week hundreds of people form scores of countries visit my Web
sites. How easy do I make it for them to do business with me?
While I can't say I've begun to implement all these ideas in my own Web sites, I've prepared a checklist to jog your thinking about
global business readiness:
Can potential markets read your Web page? Does your Web page
need to be translated to open markets to you? Face it.
Even though English may be the lingua franca (grin) of
the world, fully one-third of the world's population speaks Chinese.
Does your shipping table take international shipments
seriously? You may offer products that cannot be obtained easily
in various parts of the world, so even if the shipping rates seem
exorbitant to you, they may be acceptable to your customers.
How do you handle international funds transfers? Ask
your bank how easy and expensive it is to process international
bank drafts and wire transfers. How will the exchange rate affect
your sales?
Does your Web page presentation reflect a cultural bias
you are not aware of, or say things in a way which may be insulting
to readers in different cultures?
Have you advertised your Web pages on the growing number of
regional search engines.
Do you need a mirror site (a duplicate Web site in a foreign country) so access and download times
are not excessive in your target marketplace on the other side of the globe?
Have you thought of developing international contacts
who can aid your business in other countries?
Have you explored the resources from your government on exporting
which are available to you?
Have you developed strategies to target your Web marketing
to particular countries and cultures. The shotgun (easy to do
on the Web) is much less effective than the rifle, which takes
more skill in aiming.
This list is only suggestive. But if you follow out all these
links and the pages linked to them, you'll learn a great deal. Please excuse the US bias revealed here. ;-)
Journal of International Marketing,
1993-1995, published by Michigan State University Press. Abstracts
and executive summaries of articles on-line.
International Business Resources on the WWW,
an extremely rich linking resource from the Center for the International
Business Education and Research (CIBER) at Michigan State
University. Links here to lots of information made available by government agencies from Europe and Asia.
GEMS (Global Export
Market Information), U.S. Department of Commerce. Information
for US small businesses wishing to trade abroad.
STAT-USA Export and Trade Information.
Gathers the most crucial, timely business and economic information
from over 50 Federal Agencies and distributes from a central source.
Available by subscription, $50 per quarter, $150/year. http://www.stat-usa.gov/BEN/subject/trade.html
A Basic Guide to Exporting,
U.S. Department of Commerce. (Also available in print version
from the GPO linked below).
Importing into the United States, October 1994, for example,
may be purchased for $6.50 at the GPO site above.
Translation services on the Web. Search AltaVista placing
quotation marks around the words "translation services,"
and you'll find many companies doing this sort of work.
Intercultural communication consultants. One of my clients is WBC Associates,
which provides consulting services for companies seeking to do
business in China, India, and other Pacific Rim countries.
National Export Directory
gives address and phone numbers of multiple locations where export
help can be obtained in all 50 US states.
