As an engineering company, once it grows to a certain scale, if it continues to develop within its own country, it will hit a ceiling for growth. Especially for a listed company, shareholders' love for increased revenue and profits forces the company's leadership to decide how to expand market share or market scope. At this time, going to overseas markets is almost the unanimous choice of every company.
So what are the ways to enter the foreign engineering market?
1. Seek an agent. A shortcut is to seek an agent. Through an agent, you can shorten the time to enter a country, and at the same time, you can get a lot of valuable information and help from the agent, both during the project execution stage. However, it should be noted that some countries clearly stipulate that agents are not allowed. In addition, you must be very careful when choosing an agent. Otherwise, not only may the project not be brought to you, but your reputation may be damaged, and you may even suffer financial losses.
2. Form a consortium with foreign counterparts. European, American and even Japanese engineering companies have high labor costs and high equipment costs, but they have rich management experience and many project achievements. China's labor costs are relatively low, and the cost of equipment and materials is low. It is a good way for both parties to complement each other and enhance competitiveness. The possible problem is that the other party is unwilling to take greater risks. In order to go abroad and learn from its advanced experience, China sometimes can only take greater risks, but the profits are lower.
3. Make full use of the Belt and Road policy and use financing to obtain projects.
4. Jointly go overseas. Some small and medium-sized engineering companies or private enterprises have joined forces with state-owned enterprises to use the financing capabilities of state-owned enterprises and their own execution capabilities to provide competitiveness and obtain projects. At this time, the emphasis is on complementarity in the division of labor. It is usually difficult to join forces in the same industry, unless the project is too large and the execution risk is too great for one company to bear.
5. Bundle with patent vendors to increase your chances of winning.
6. Develop proprietary technology. If you have suitable competitive proprietary technology, it will be easier to enter overseas markets.
7. Using industry associations, chambers of commerce, and research institutions to obtain information and communicate with potential customers is also a way.
If you just want to fight a guerrilla war, you can try all the above methods. But if you plan to exist in a country or region for a long time, you need to send marketing personnel to stay there and set up branches or subsidiaries. Develop a deeper understanding of the history, current situation, laws, taxation, religion, customs, etc. of the country or region. This is not only conducive to market development and risk avoidance, but also conducive to project execution.
Customer classification: Different industries have different classification methods. For example, in the oil and gas industry, in some countries such as Algeria and Nigeria, the market is basically controlled by national oil companies, which can be regarded as key customers; the other is IOC, an international oil and gas group, which establishes joint ventures with local national oil companies. Occupying the local oil and gas market; there are also some local oil and gas companies whose strength is gradually increasing and worthy of attention and cooperation. The customers in the communications industry are more concentrated, mainly government departments and several communications companies.
Customer relationship building. Those local big families should be chosen, and their clansmen hold important positions in the government, the military, or religious groups, so they have a solid foundation, great influence, and can last. These families themselves have many companies that need to be developed, and their forces are intertwined. They naturally have great advantages in acquiring resources and are worthy of long-term cooperation. Cooperation with multinational groups requires establishing relationships with their headquarters and taking a global view.
Marketing is an art, and everyone has their own way. Times are changing, and the art of marketing is endlessly changing. The methods of entering overseas markets will also be ever-changing, which is worthy of continuous exploration by marketers.