Most consumer goods companies budget at least something for market research, for compliance, for marketing spend in a new territory. Far fewer evaluate properly for …
Continue ReadingThe Export Sales Manager Myth – One Job Title Hides Several Different Jobs
“We just need a good export sales manager.” I must have heard some version of that sentence a hundred times over the last thirty years, …
Continue ReadingDeciding Which International Market to Enter: The Operational Reality Check
In part one of this series, we built a long list of candidate markets and scored them for attractiveness. In part two, we put a …
Continue ReadingDeciding Which International Market to Enter: Sizing the Opportunity
In part one of this series, we built a long list of candidate markets and scored each one for attractiveness against economy, culture, institutions, and …
Continue Reading10 years on: Post-Brexit Challenges for Food and Drink Exporters
Ten years ago, I woke up to a result I still haven’t fully made peace with. I’m a British citizen living in Austria, and Austria …
Continue ReadingAn international expansion strategy framework: the R.E.A.D Method
There’s a pattern I see repeatedly in international expansion where a brand has a genuinely good product. The timing feels right, the market opportunity looks …
Continue ReadingTrends in the Beverage Industry when Entering the Nordics Markets
If you want to understand the trends in the beverage industry in Northern Europe right now, the Nordic region is one of the most instructive …
Continue ReadingChinese Market Success: What FMCG Brands Can Learn from Canada Goose
Canada Goose’s Chinese market success is an unlikely story – and a useful one. When Dani Reiss took over as CEO in 2001, the company …
Continue ReadingRaising the Lobster: Potential AI Risks in China for European Brands
On a Friday afternoon in early March, nearly a thousand people queued outside Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen to get a piece of software installed on …
Continue ReadingIs Asia Still Worth It for Export by Consumer Goods Brands?
If you have spent any time in international trade conversations over the past 18 months, you will have noticed a shift in tone. The question …
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