business matters
december/january 2018 business edge
How do you reach more customers in international markets? Greig Holbrook Founder Oban International
Greig Holbrook, founder of Oban International, says: “In the past, translating your website into the local language and adding local contact details was considered sufficient localisation, irrespective of the market or sector. “Companies are now realising that to reach and engage with people in markets around the world, a more comprehensive approach is required. This mean digging deeper to discover ‘the way we do things around here’. Trust is a prerequisite for selling online, built through many factors, including brand familiarity. If you don’t have a famous brand, customers make quick decisions based on whether a site ‘feels right’, and that’s where culturalisation comes in.” There are all sorts of practical expectations to meet: Does your website work on local mobile devices? Customers won’t pay for data greedy webpages. Mobile consumers will desert a website that’s too slow to load. There are local expectations too: Are the expected payment options available? In some countries there is still a large amount of cash on delivery payment. 90% of Americans will abandon a shopping basket if there is a delivery charge. In Russia delivery firms often wait while customers try clothes on. Overlaid are the subtler cultural cues: Does the home page look the way you expect – densely packed with information in China and more minimalist in the UK? Is your customer service locally appropriate, reflecting the right national holidays and suitable opening hours? One interesting digital cultural phenomenon is the use of hybrid language in search. Italian customers looking for cheap flights are seven times more likely to search for ‘voli low cost’ than ‘voli economici’. If you aren’t aware of the best search terms for your category, you could be missing significant business opportunities. Oban International’s ability to understand international market opportunities comes from their LIME (Local In-Market Expert) network, overlaying data with expert qualitative cultural insights. Greg Holbrook says, “The ability to match market and customer cultural identities is the key to driving international performance.”
8
Phrase
Volume
Country
Language
cheap flights
4,400
Italy
English
cheap flight
880
Italy
English
voli low cost
246,000
Italy
Italian/English
voli economici
33,100
Italy
Italian
offerte voli
22,200
Italy
Italian
compagnie low cost
14,800
Italy
Italian/English
www.sussexchamberofcommerce.co.uk
Branding & Marketing In considering this edition’s key focus on branding and marketing I am reminded of some sage advice that I received whilst studying at the London Business School in 1998. More of that advice later, but I deliberately digress now by recalling how valuable to me and my career it was to break from the routine of running a business and spend two months, full time and residential, studying alongside other international executives, with the best academics there are, on the LBS’ Senior Executive Programme. To this day that learning has held me in good stead having encountered for the first time, game play, story telling, 360 degree appraisals, self awareness and so much more. It was so intense and self critical that I remember the MD of a well known fast food chain breaking down in tears after hearing feedback from his peers (us) to the extent that, even with counsellors on hand, he immediately resigned his job. An African bank executive also commented “nobody has ever told me honestly about myself before”. Well he was the son of the head of the military, so no surprise there. So what of the sage advice? Well one of the visiting professors who addressed us at the LBS was Gary Hamel, recently ranked by The Wall Street Journal as the world’s most influential business thinker, and who had written the book “Competing for the Future” in 1994 with C.K. Prahalad. 1998, I will remind you, was in the middle of the dot com bubble and Hamel was in the thick of it as an exponent of the way technology was changing the global approach to competitiveness. I secretly chuckle when I remember that he singularly failed to see the impending bursting of the bubble in 2002 but to his credit the principles in the book are sound and I commend it to you as a very good read. Now Hamel made the very cute observation that over time every corporation will cease to exist as it is (apart from government and the civil service) it just depends how long your time line is. So previous global giants (Kodak, Pan Am, Xerox, IBM, Nokia) who at the time seem dominant and untouchable eventually disappear. He provides a very good rationale for this in his book but the sage advise he gives is that companies must re-generate when they are on the up and not when the future looks uncertain or bleak. If you wait until then, it is too late. So I would recommend, investing in branding and marketing when times are good and don’t only do it as a reaction to a loss of competitiveness or market share. Keep ahead of the competition and take them by surprise by managing change as part of your normal operation and remember your company’s tenure is inevitably limited, it is only a matter of time.
David Sheppard Chairman Sussex Chamber of Commerce
tel: 01444 259 259