The most frequent thing when a Temporary Export Manager begins an assignment is an indication, by the company management, of one or more Countries in which to develop the business: the belonging of the companies to the respective supply chains allows them to know the main dynamics of the corresponding International Trade.
The numerous existing statistical platforms help a lot: in fact, International Trading data are always broken down by Product - or family of products - and Country of destination. In this sense, the task is greatly facilitated and, virtually, no mistakes are made when following the demand for a certain good and orienting oneself accordingly.
In the Export strategy, the Country approach certainly applies to the categories of consumer goods and to the industrial goods that are used to produce them: for example, circulating pumps for domestic boilers or pumps for washing machines.
The main trick - that is, the difficulty - concerns the market entry channels and distribution channels of products in the various countries. We take it for granted that in the Export strategy with a country approach, the demand for that product, the methods and purchasing power of consumers, etc. are previously analyzed.
but the world is changing and looking around we see industrial sectors in crisis and Companies that are closing down every day
Why this?
The reasons given by the media are well known and can be traced back to geopolitical factors, customs barriers, price dynamics, green transition etc: before everyone's eyes is the Automotive crisis that is affecting the steel, metallurgy, rubber, plastics and mechanical supply chains.
But there are more hidden reasons, ones that companies should analyze and that are not in newspapers and international Trade blogs.
when a company is in difficulty it is probably because it has not used the sector approach adequately
But let's stick to exports and analyze the problem from this point of view: many Companies over the years have worried about WHERE to export within one or (few) product sectors. Always those (few) supply chains.
The companies' skill has been to create a worldwide commercial network and to internationalize, both in terms of stable foreign Organizations and supply chain.
Companies have rarely thought about different scenarios, that is, scenarios of crisis in the sectors in which they operated.
Today, when I go to Companies, the first thing I do during the checkup phase is to understand in which sectors the companies best provide their value and I care little, at least initially, about the countries to which they export or wish to export.
To correctly define my Export strategy, I am concerned with understanding if and how they can address different product sectors, even if they are "bordering" on the usual ones. All in the name of risk diversification.
almost always there are sectors that have not yet been explored by companies and there it is necessary to understand whether or not there is growth potential
Operationally, the CANVAS model is very useful to best conduct this analysis.
After having carefully segmented the market sectors in which the Company can propose and activate itself, it is possible to proceed to an orderly evaluation of the countries in which to operate, defining a hierarchy of priorities.
What has been said is even more valid the more the products have a significant technological content: in the industrial sector, this is the case of plant engineering and capital goods, which "serve" very specific sectors rooted in a few countries compared to more common and widely distributed goods such as components.
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Alberto Scanziani
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