What is an internationalization strategy
Well, this is a type of growth-based strategy. And more specifically, it is a growth-based organizational strategy
When an organizational strategy is the highest level strategy of an organization
it incorporates the mission, the vision for the company, and how it interacts with the market and how stakeholders, third party and internal, see the organization
So with that being said, growth is a common organizational strategy. Now, how do you achieve that growth
A subcategory would be through internationalization. That is, you are expanding into foreign markets
So with that being said, there are multiple types of internationalization strategies
First would be multi-domestic. And this simply focuses on offering your goods or services in another country
whereby you are competing in that country kind of as a domestic player
So you oftentimes have to comply with local laws, rules, regulations, customs for the industry
but it generally also means you have to adapt your product or service offering to that environment
So you're actually kind of, in a way, running multiple types of business
because of the unique nature of what it takes to operate in that environment
A global strategy would simply mean you take advantage of your economies of scale
to offer your product or service in a foreign environment, but you don't do a lot of modification, a lot of adaptation of your product or service to the local market
You're simply expanding and reaching customers in the foreign market based on the current product characteristics
And then lastly would be a transnational strategy. And this can best be thought of as a mixture of multi-domestic and global strategy
You are still trying to take advantage of your economies of scale to reach these foreign markets
and to offer your product or value proposition directly to customer clients or end users
but you are doing some domestication of the product. You are making slight modifications to make it fit better in that jurisdiction or in that country or nation
So as with a pure multi-domestic strategy, you're going to have to become accustomed to the norms, the customs
the laws, the regulations, all those things that entail doing business there
but at the same time you're taking advantage of the core strategy
and the operational characteristics of what you have in your home country
So this, in summary, is an internationalization strategy that is a type of growth-based organizational strategy