Question

Conducting business during the 21st century has many dimensions. To what extent are national forces being superseded by global trends, especially in terms of multilateral institutions such as the European Union and various economic agreements in the Western Hemisphere and Asia? When a company considers investing internationally, how should the four alternatives for strategic choice be used in pursuing business opportunities in Africa?

Answer 1

The four alternatives, i.e. Product, Price, Promotion and Place should be used by considering existing competition in the African market as well as the existing economic agreement which can affect the investment in African market.

1 Product: The company should first decide which product to sell/market in African market and what is the existing competition and what is the purchasing power of African people and what is the existing market share of competing countries and there are two strategy faced by the company whether to directly sell/export the product in the African market or indirectly via distributor or by establishing joint venture with any local African company and the company also has to take decision about packaging, labelling in order to control its cost of these elements for gaining profit/return on the exported product.

2 Price: it is also very important that how and what price is to be charged to their customers in the African market and whether initially discount strategy should be applied and what price competitors are charging and how to price its products in order to gain market share in the already competitive market.

3 Promotion: Promotional strategy is also very very important since in order to establish product in the market it is very important to advise about the launch of the product to the consumers and same can be done via print media, i.e. news paper, electronic media, i.e. TV, Internet, Social Media websites, direct selling to the customer/door to door marketing and training to local sales force in order for them to promote/market the product.

4 Place: It is also very important to decide the area or segment the market into different markets based on consumers purchasing power and accordingly place the product into that market in order to make in-road into that market and gain market share since market segmentation based on place is very important and accordingly product supply should be done and accordingly warehouses can be established for storing the products, for example where demand is more warehouse can be established near to that market in order to keep supply as per demand conditions in order to establish the product in the market.