Global marketing is described as the process through which individuals or companies produce products, offer services, and make them available to customers worldwide (Czinkota and Ronkainen, 2006). This type of marketing has brought about development within the world and more so, creating job opportunities for many people.
The purpose of this analysis is to help readers establish more about international marketing and to learn on some of the challenges that this type of market is subjected to. It is also aimed at assisting individuals as well as companies in discovering ways in which they can indulge themselves in this kind of markets (Keegan and Green, 2012).
Companies, which market their products and services globally, are faced with several cultural factors and as such, they either favor or disfavor their global marketing strategies. These cultural dimensions include;
Competition
Marketing globally tends to create a great competition especially if many entrepreneurs in the world, who uses the same channel to market, are engaging with the same type of products. Global marketing is largely facilitated by technological development aspects and hence bringing about tremendous development in communication and transport in meeting, the customer’s needs effectively (Johansson, 2008).
As a result, continuous provision of quality products to consumers from different companies and countries is ensured. As such, it means that the competition for a product or service is very high. This can be regarded as a great challenge to entrepreneurs’ as they try to ensure that their goods are presentable and attractive to the consumers.
In response to this challenge, companies pump many resources to try having a competitive advantage and as such, those companies with a small funding capacity can easily back out (Gerbe, 2007).
Political culture
The state of governance in countries, which a company decides to trade with, greatly determines how one will run his/her business in that country. In some countries, there exist conflicts in almost every sphere meaning that the political environment is unstable and as such, trading in that country becomes difficult (Gerbe, 2007). For instance, tax charged on imported goods might be very high such that low funded companies cannot meet and hence posing as a great hindrance to trade.
Other countries employ dictatorship mode of governance and as such, some harsh rules are put into place, which tends to suppress the foreign investors and entrepreneurs and therefore, the marketing of a product or service may reduce due to harsh political environment (Johansson, 2008).
Society Lifestyle
In any country, the lifestyle of its citizen will determine if the marketing of foreign made goods or services will be successful or not. Some products are not accepted in certain countries because of their cultures and taboos. Therefore, before a company decides to engage global marketing, it is necessary to find out if their way of living does support the use the product or service it intends to introduce.
This decision is necessary as, if a company fails to consider the lifestyle, then it becomes a victim of terrible marketing thus tremendous losses (Hollensen, 2001).
Capital
Marketing globally necessitates pumping huge amounts of financial resources. This plays a great challenge to individual or companies who cannot meet the cost. It mostly affects the developing worlds as well as the third world countries (Matt, 2008). For a company to engage successfully into this type of market, it becomes important that there be a continuous flow of substantial income to ensure that there is no delay in the production of the product.
The delay can lead to the collapse of the company due to the high competition from other well off firms where the consumers can turn to at any time. Capital necessary to finance such big investments can be obtained through loans from banks and other financial institutions (Dana, 2001).
A company, for instance, dealing with cosmetic or beauty products, may face a challenge in its effort aimed at marketing its products globally whereby it would be subjected by stiff and unhealthy competition. Such a company should establish criteria on how to deal with this problem in order to survive in the field.
Due presence of an integrated technology, the competition is exceedingly escalating and thus, for a company to survive this competition, it must ensure that its products are readily available to the consumers even at their doorsteps (Hollensen, 2007). The use of Internet makes it possible for enterprise to advertise their products using their website therefore reaching as many market segments as possible without incorporating a lot of resource or energy.
This, in turn, will ensure that the companies make tremendous amounts of profits. Since there are so many companies making use of global markets to market cosmetic products, there is a wide variety of products for the consumer to choose from, the quality of the product also determines how consumers will respond to the product (Kaynak, 2002).
For a company to effectively engage in global marketing and develop a competitive advantage over its competitors, it must recommend ideas and tactics and incorporate them in its global marketing strategy. Such recommendations would include;
Search competition culture information
A company dealing with cosmetic and beauty products must take advantage of the existing integrated information technology to search adequately the relevant information regarding the nature of competition existing among companies marketing their beauty products globally. It must get into fine details including the amount of resources capable of giving it a commanding lead as well as a competitive advantage over its competitors. In addition, it must find information on untapped markets and doing all this, it can easily avoid unhealthy competition (Schmidtmann, 2008).
High quality products and services
To effectively attract a substantial demand for beauty products and services from customers across the world, it is necessary that a company dealing with such products to ensure that an integrated paradigm in management is put in place. As such, it will ensure that its products pass through quality assurance tests and hence, the products must be of superior quality.
This is a winning strategy, putting competition into consideration, as customers will always prefer quality and unique products. Moreover, quality products are indispensable and will become accepted across many countries across the world (Hollensen, 2007).
Multi level Marketing
Beauty products are regarded as basic needs as nearly every person uses them. Their markets are readily available and as such, making use of people globally to take these products and services to their doorsteps becomes an important aspect if a company wishes to attain a competitive advantage.
As such, not many companies indulging in global market trading do employ retailing at such levels. Utilizing diversified marketing levels is an important aspect in establishment of different market segments in an effort to mitigate the presence of stiff competition (Saidin, 2007).
Fair Prices
While still maintaining high levels of quality among its beauty products and services, the company indulging itself in global marketing must ensure that it maintains affordable prices of their products and services. As such, the prices must be slightly below the competitor’s prices. Fair prices are used to entice customers and as such, they prove to be effective as large volumes of sales are realized and this means that a company has achieved a certain degree of command in respect to competition (Saidin, 2007).
Liaison
A company dealing with cosmetic and beauty products and services can liaise with specific wholesalers as well as retailers globally to sell its products through them subject to a small merit fee. A company, which intends to achieve an upper hand in issues concerning competition, it is necessary that, it approach various groups of traders to optimize the channels through which its products will be distributed.
From this analysis, it is clear that global marketing is faced with a great deal of challenges positioned by cultural dimensions the major ones being economic culture, that is, capital, competition from the like minded companies, politics in various countries across the world as well as the diversified lifestyles shown by different categories of people, their cultures, tastes and preferences.
A company must be very cautious in engaging into the global market to avoid setbacks resulted by undesirability of its products. As such, it must establish measures to curb these possibilities, especially the case associated with global competition (Mooij, 2009). The most important effort towards mitigation of such issues is making substantial use of the integrated information technology to establish the strengths and the weaknesses of the competitors.
References
Czinkota, M.R, & Ronkainen, I.R., (2006), Global marketing, Oklahoma: Dryden Press
Dana, L.P., (2001), Global Marketing Co-Operation and Networks, New Jersey: Routledge
Gerbe, K. (2007), Intercultural Communication as a Strategy of Global Marketing: Marketing, Marienstrasse: GRIN Verlag
Hollensen, S. (2001), Global marketing: a market-responsive approach, New Jersey: Prentice Hall
Hollensen, S., (2007), Global marketing: a decision-oriented approach, New Jersey: Prentice Hall
Johansson, J.K. (2008), Global Marketing: Foreign Entry, Local Marketing, and Global Management, New York: MJMcGraw-Hill Irwin
Kaynak, E. (2002), Strategic Global Marketing: Issues and Trends, New Jersey: Routledge
Keegan, W.J, and Green, M., (2012), Global Marketing. New Jersey: Prentice Hall
Matt, K.J. (2008), Global Marketing: A Cultural Point of View. Mason: Cengage Learning
Mooij, M.K. (2009), Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding Cultural Paradoxes. Thousand Oaks: SAGE
Saidin, S. (2007), Global Marketing: Myth or reality. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons
Schmidtmann, L. (2008), Global Marketing and Global Human Resources Management – Internationale. Marienstrasse: GRIN Verlag