International Business OrganizationExport/International business can take on many challenges as it unfolds. Goal should be to construct the company’s strategic building blocks, using it’s assets to support international opportunities. The outline is formatted from a more basic approach, increasing through stages of complexity. There will be points below that overlap and dovetail. Some corporations may have already touched on many of these points. The examples below are geared toward the food/protein industries. Nevertheless, the concepts are transferable to many others. Below are organizational ideas for consideration:I. International Business Unit Establishment- Create P&L.
A. Budget to encompass 3-5 key trade shows and conferences that support the geographic strategy.- Restaurant Chain Shows (Subway, McDonalds, etc.)- Important shows that demonstrate a company’s willingness to globally expand with the chains.- Distributor Shows.- Trade organization conferences. Provide key insights to new emerging markets and trends i.e., USMEF, USDEC, etc.B. Forecasting- By product category and market to determine business profitability.C. Expenses- Identify expenses against the business. Be fiscally prudent.II. Geography- Are the most immediate markets being efficiently addressed by export? Begin with the immediate opportunities i.e., target nearest or import friendly international geographic markets.A. Canada-B. Mexico-C. Caribbean-D. Domestic Exporters-III. Export Product Portfolio- Product’s export potential? What are the popular US items sold? Using meat products as an example:A. Pork- More than likely highest export potential.B. Poultry- Certain drawbacks (Avian viruses), but often has the necessary price points for market entry.C. Beef- Still questionable into many overseas markets (BSE). Slowly improving.D. Other- Veal and lamb offer the specialty items often sought in many of the smaller boutique markets i.e., Caribbean. Should be a high margin opportunity?IV. Utilize and maximize current customer base. Grow internationally with domestic customers.A. Chains- What chains are currently being serviced (i.e., McDonalds)? What are the int’l springboard applications of those chains?B. Distributors- GFS,US :: GFS, Canada; Sysco, US :: Sysco, Canada…Sysco, Export
C. Schools- Offer products supplied to the US to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and Guam have same requirements.D. Retail.V. Expand Geography- Be first in emerging markets. Chains, trade organizations and trade shows will assist in breaking into new venues.A. Australia, open to US pork imports. US plants must be Australian approved.B. Brazil and Argentina- as economies improve, so should pork imports.C. Middle East- Israel.D. Asia- SE Asia, Latin America.VI. Product adaptation-A. A commitment to international product customization. Overcome import non-tariff barriers through product modification.B. As point “A” is evaluated, determine volumes and pricing with the customer completing the value proposition.C. New protein introduction- Growing US Hispanic community looking to satisfy traditional diets i.e., goat. US ranchers begin to emerge from their traditional ranching habits to fill a consumer need. Shift creates new export opportunities.D. Profit Margin/Revenue Growth- Theoretically, there is no competition for custom production and margins should reflect business value.VII. Resource utilization-A. R&D efforts to meet a qualified opportunity. Example, a 51% breaded product can be exported to Canada vs. a product with less than 50% breading.B. Account Managers- Joint calls on corporate to further support the chains international expansions.Distributor Managers- Joint calls in evaluating immediate opportunities extending across borders.
C. School Managers- Joint calls in US territories to expand and maximize product presence.VIII. International Partnership Arrangements. Partnering/Joint Ventures with like businesses overseas. Some ideal targets are Japan, Australia, Mexico, China. Key defining terms…product novelty, business profitability, uniqueness, pricing, product demand, market distribution, language understanding, product understanding. If there is a commitment from an overseas manufacturer who understands the product/species, but lacks certain manufacturing capabilities, a partnership should be suggested.A. Responsibility considerations Raw Material Hedgeo Currency Hedgeo Brokerage Agreemento Time lineso Production Capacityo Legal contract/Export InsuranceB. Partner’s Responsibilities:o Volume Projectionso Co-Pack Agreemento QA Plant Approvalo End User Presentationso Stand-by Letter of Credit/Purchasing Contracto Exclusivityo Currency Hedgeo Other product opportunitiesNotice currency hedge may fall under both and is open for negotiation. It depends on relationship’s strength. Many times it should be for the account of the partner. An exception may be made to consummate the deal, or as a long term service insuring a yearly contract renewal.IX. Licensing- Often used as a barometer in evaluating potential opportunities and minimizing immediate risks.A. Brand Licensing- What is the true value of a certain brand in an international market? Would be determined by the partner company in that country.Example. What was the value of the Parkay brand in Canada? Became the second best Canadian margarine brand. Produced by Parmalat in Canada. Brand was licensed by ConAgra US.B. Technology- Minimizes capital overseas investment, while transferring US production technology.X. Mergers and Acquisitions- Up to this point a corporation may be supplying and evaluating their export potential. Simultaneously, it should be considering the business worthiness of certain key markets. Ultimately, it may consider investment in those markets.A. Partnership/JV company may be ripe for buy-out.B. Margin potential internationally warrants an acquisition for corporate diversification purposes.
C. Many similarities i.e., language, business culture, profitability, increased product demand from growing middle class, business supporting political environment.D. Overcome stringent food import barriers i.e., EEC. Example- Companies have improved international exposure, opening manufacturing plants within the EEC. An example has been the recent purchase of Sara Lee European brands by Smithfield.XI. Summary- These idea compilations are based on 20 years of international business experiences with four major corporations and an MA in International Business. No one size fits all. The outline can be used to build new profitable opportunities that may not otherwise have been realized or fully exploited.

Recently, a page on one of my websites was bookmarked
or listed on Digg, a popular social bookmark site. It
gave me the perfect opportunity to study and analyze
the traffic coming from these social media sites. Read
to discover the advantages and disadvantages of social
bookmark traffic and how it can be applied to your
own online marketing or site.Is Social BookMark Traffic Useless?First, we must make the distinction that no traffic
is useless. Any visitor to your site is a good thing
and should be welcomed. However, all traffic is not
created equally, there are great differences in the
sources of your traffic. This article takes a close
analytical look at social bookmark traffic from an
internet marketing perspective.In case you haven’t noticed, right now social bookmark
and media sites are all the rage on the web. Social
bookmark traffic comes from such popular sites as
Slashdot, Digg, Stumbleupon… basically these sites
are driven by their users — that is, users or members
pick and bookmark the content they want to view and
discuss.These social bookmark sites are extremely popular;
they command the high traffic numbers most ordinary
sites can only dream about obtaining.But is this social bookmark traffic useful?Is it worth your time? Should you be actively promoting
to these social media sites? Is social bookmark traffic
of any use to the affiliate marketer? Should you
concentrate your online marketing efforts on these
types of sites? More importantly, what are the benefits
and disadvantages of getting a front page listing on
a sites like Digg or Stumbleupon?As a full-time online marketer I wanted to know the
answers to those questions. Moreover, I wanted to
discover how or if I could use these sites from
an online marketer’s advantage; i.e. how can they
help me create more online income.Recently, the Digg listing gave me a first-hand
opportunity to really study these sites.Of course, nothing happens without a reason… I did
actually court these social bookmark sites by placing
the free Addthis.com bookmark on all my pages. You can
do the same. This simple bookmark lets your visitors
bookmark your content for you in all these sites; it
only takes a few seconds to place the bookmark code
on your webpages.But be careful; getting your site featured on the
front page of these sites can drive 100,000′s of
visitors to your site immediately, so much traffic
that it may overtax your server and crash it.So be warned; if you’re actively promoting to these
social bookmark sites just make sure your servers or
web hosting is up to the demanding task of handling
all these sudden visitors.In my case, it didn’t crash my servers but unfortunately,
the page/link in question featured an old poorly
written article I did on the history of the Internet.
It was just some random facts and things about the web,
not really an article at all. Why it was even
featured on Digg is a puzzle and beyond me.But still I am not one to waste an opportunity, so I
put my Google Analytics into overdrive and starting
analyzing these visitors and social bookmark traffic.It pointed out some very interesting factors about this
social bookmark traffic.Most of this traffic will:
simply bounce back
very few visitors will spend much time on your site
very few visitors will even venture into your site
very few will sign up to your newsletter
very few will enter your marketing follow-ups/funnels
(The unknown variable here being the content on your
site, how good it is? How well does it perform?)Regardless, one common problem with traffic from these
sites, it’s very temporary traffic. The high volume
will only last a few days… until your item is moved
back from the front page.These visitors will not stay on your site long and
most are gone within seconds, never to be seen again.
A few may sign up to your newsletter or venture to
other areas of your site but not many.Social bookmark traffic is very fleeting, like
customers in the drive-through section in a fast
food restaurant, they grab the content and surf back
to the major linking site very quickly and surf
on to the next item.This traffic will behave very differently than
organic traffic from the search engines, or from
your newsletter traffic or from traffic in your
marketing funnels. Much different.It was unlike getting one of my articles featured
in Addme or SiteProNews, where I can easily get 200
or 300 new subscribers in a day. Plus, these visitors
are interested in my information and have been exposed
to my content (article) before coming to my site.So there was no comparison; I would take the
traffic from these sites any day over traffic
from the social bookmark sites. And I would
take free organic traffic from the search engines
over any other source of traffic including
PPC traffic.So the question remains – is social bookmark traffic
useless?First, as I mentioned before, you must realize no
traffic is useless; any visitors to your site is a
good thing. Without traffic your site is worthless,
just a few files sitting on a server in the middle
of nowhere.Obtaining visitors is one of your first objectives
as a webmaster. You have to get visitors to your
site or it’s game over.The best kind of traffic is traffic coming from
organic search, visitors who come from the search
engines seeking exactly what you’re offering on
your site. These are targeted visitors who will
consider your offer, real your information,
maybe buy a product or sign-up to your newsletter
or follow-up system. They often become repeat
visitors to your site. These are your ideal visitors.
This is the kind of traffic you want.Social bookmark/media traffic is different but it
does have some saving graces.Mainly it can help expose your site to millions and
help brand your site or business. It can get the word
out about your site. Start a buzz.If you have a site that appeals to the mass market,
then these social sites could be an excellent
recruiting ground for visitors and traffic.These social sites are good for another reason;
getting your links on all these high traffic,
high PR7 and PR8 sites can’t hurt your search
engine rankings. Once featured on a site like
Digg, your link will appear on many secondary
sites around the web, so far 500+ and counting.
Monkey see, monkey do. Although it has never been
my main ambition to get featured on Fark.com, all
these sites do have high PR ranks so from a SEO
standpoint it is not necessarily a bad thing.Since many of these visitors will be using the
Firefox browser which has the Alexa toolbar
embedded – your site’s traffic rank will increase.
Over 50% of the bookmark traffic coming to my site
were using the Firefox browser. Alexa’s traffic
rankings are not a true picture of the web’s
traffic but it’s a good measuring stick,
nonetheless.Google might even consider it when ranking your
site. Google basically considers their whole
indexing system as a democratic voting structure…
sites give a vote by linking to your content;
wouldn’t it also be reasonable to assume more
traffic means more votes. So wouldn’t getting a
lot of traffic or being featured on a site like
Digg where the users vote to propel the best
content to the front be the ultimate vote.One strange thing I did notice, for some reason
the traffic from Stumbleupon was different. These
visitors stayed longer on my site and reacted more
like organic traffic. Maybe the Stumbleupon site is
of a higher quality and this may have been reflected
in the quality of the visitors coming from there.
It also reminded me, all traffic from these social
media sites can’t be judged with the one brush.This whole experience also pointed out another
important factor; it made me realize how unsuited
my content is for the general web surfer or the
mainstream web. Just how much my online sites are
geared towards marketing and selling. My main goal
as an affiliate marketer is to gather leads and make
sales for the companies and products I promote. All
my sites and content were planned and organized to
first draw in targeted (warmed up) visitors from free
organic search and from my online articles.If I or anyone wanted to take advantage of this
social media traffic, you would have to create
your site/content to appeal to these surfers and
then somehow draw them into your marketing funnels.
I don’t know if the majority of the users of these
bookmark sites would make good prospects, but my
guess is not very likely, the nature of the beast.
But it would largely depend on what you’re offering
on your site and how well it is suited to these users.So I am not drawing any conclusions yet. Hopefully, I will have further chances to study traffic
from these social sites and get the long-term effects,
especially in regards to my keyword rankings in the
search engines before making any final judgments.For now I will keep an open mind but the jury is still
way out whether or not social bookmark traffic is worth
the interruption to the daily marketing tasks of your site.
Just seems like much ado about nothing.