As you enter new markets, you must localise to get traction. Global opportunities have become more apparent with the recent shifts in business, so speed and agility are more important than ever.
Yet most companies fail to address the complexities that go into successful localisation.
Why? International expansion is complex. Legacy-minded business leaders often don’t see localisation going much beyond language translation. They assume what works at home will translate to new markets. This leaves their businesses failing to achieve company-market fit in a new market.
However, in our research for our book Global Class, we discovered a new subset of “Global Class Companies” who run into the same problems but have adopted certain best practices. These Global Class companies leverage a set of tactics and best practices to build a business at global scale.
The Business Model Localisation Canvas
Global Class companies use an internationalised agile methodology to structure the localisation process and find the right model for a new market.
To further assist in this process, we have created the Business Model Localisation Canvas (BMLC), a framework that helps companies facilitate localisation discovery, market identification, and identify potential localisations for new markets.
Referencing the image, you can choose categories from the Business Model Canvas, created by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, used by many startups as they navigated initial product-market fit, or you can design your own list of elements in the BMLC.
Also Read: The global fintech market: Getting a piece of the pie
The goal is to compile a comprehensive list of elements of your business and operating model and run them through the government regulation and culture filters to develop a new set of hypotheses for how your business will operate in the new market.
By nature, this will highlight the required localisation needed to find traction as well.
Market readiness
After determining that your company is well-positioned and resource-ready for international growth, the next step is to enter an information-gathering phase to figure out where to expand.
This involves a two-step market analysis process that results in a rounded evaluation of target countries. The two steps of the market analysis are:
-
Conducted at HQ
-
Conducted by travelling to the target country and conducting on-the-ground research (also known as “Localisation Discovery”)
The final aspect of the market readiness step is to establish a preliminary indication of pivots (“localisations”) to be made to your initial market product-market fit to get traction in the new market.
This step is important because if you don’t conduct a thorough market readiness assessment, you might focus on the wrong markets, lowering the return on investment and wasting time.
How should the results of the Localisation Discovery be utilised?
There should be established lines of communication that allow for a transparent, multi-directional exchange of ideas and information. We call these “feedback loops”.
Without feedback loops, for example, the local team won’t be able to communicate which changes are required according to what they learned from first-hand experience in the local market, then HQ won’t support these pivots and thereby won’t dedicate resources to adapting.
In summary, localisation is a core vehicle for companies to gain traction in a new market through pivots and iterations. To help with this, the BMLC framework we developed helps by coming up with hypotheses for models in a new market by giving estimations of the localisations required.
–
Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page
Image credit: Canva Pro
The post How Localisation Discovery is setting up the yardstick for successful international growth appeared first on e27.