Flexibility is essential when considering global expansion for your company. Every country where you do business represents a unique landscape of market conditions, legal regulations, audience interests, and job markets. Your customers may speak different languages, share different cultures, and even have different expectations for a business in your sector. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to global expansion. Even if you have a rock-solid business model and operational procedures in your home country, each new country and continent you expand to has its way of doing things.

Building Your Globalization Strategy

Global expansion is not just access to larger customer audiences. You must establish a business foothold in each new country and adapt your strategy to the local conditions. This includes the trends in each new market and the local requirements for doing business in each new country. From regulations to cultural norms, flexibility and adaptability are the key elements of a successful global expansion strategy.

With each new country you add to your enterprise, you must build a unique strategy tailored to local market demands and regulations that govern each office, store, or venue.

Adapt to Local Laws and Regulations

The first step in any global expansion strategy is understanding the local laws and regulations. Consider both the general business laws and those that apply to businesses in your industry. Determine any licenses or permits you may need to acquire before setting up shop. Secure new locations or proxies that will conduct business on your behalf if you plan to primarily operate remotely.

You may need special authorization, auditing, or certification to sell your products or provide specific services in each new country. Hiring a local business lawyer is often the most efficient way to ensure that you are fully prepared and legally protected when you start to do business in global markets and locations.

Appeal to New Audiences and Cultural Styles

Understanding demand in your country does not always translate directly into new markets across the globe. A combination of different cultural norms, style preferences, and economic pressures can change your product demand and what your new audience will expect from what you have to offer.

Perform detailed market research before you expand. Consider how your strategy might change to adapt to each new market. You will likely need to advertise with the help of locals who understand each local culture. Striking the right tone and conveying the value of your product or service is more nuanced than you might realize before doing global market research.

This is especially true if new markets speak languages other than yours. Ensure that each advertisement is written by someone who fluently speaks the local language and dialect, understands the values and culture of your new market, and can convey your company’s value.

Customize Your Product for Each New Market

Global expansion also involves customizing your product. You may even need to adapt your product, not just the language on the packaging. What each culture finds appealing will vary across the globe. Preparing to adjust how you design, sell, bundle, and advertise your product can help you achieve greater success in each new market you enter. This way, you can adapt to the demand patterns of each new market.

Success comes from effectively competing with local brands, not just importing your business model and product design directly from your original design. It’s important to remember that local market research shaped your original design, and each new market can provide not just variations, but valuable insights and improvements that could positively influence your design across the board.

Build Local Networks of Partners, Vendors, and Suppliers

No company is an island or stands completely alone. Building a strong business requires a network of reliable business partners. Whether that’s local services that help fill out your office operations or a logistics network to distribute your products, you must build new connections in each new country. Each partner enhances the speed and effectiveness of your entry into new global markets.

Global expansion is often greatly improved by outsourcing tasks best performed by local specialists with a nuanced understanding of local laws and business operations. Local lawyers, business specialists, hiring firms, accounting agencies, and advertising services can help you adapt to new global markets. This allows you to focus on what your company does best.

New Recruiting, Hiring, and Employment Strategies

Of course, it’s also necessary to hire locally. Global business locations work best when they are staffed with local professionals and imported specialists. The best way to achieve this is to work closely with hiring and employment agencies in countries where you expand. An Employer of Record (EOR) allows you to hire employees directly in new countries before establishing a complete foothold.

Employees hired through your EOR can help you build your foundations with a combination of familiarity and expertise in their home country while acting as employees of your business. This process can help you secure the essentials for expansion, such as new business locations and initial market research. It can also support hype-building advertisements or client acquisition for your upcoming grand opening.

Start Your Global Expansion in Canada With BrightR

Global expansion requires flexibility, adaptability, and a great network of business partners. BrightR is an Employer of Record based in Canada that can act as the legal employer for your Canadian hires as you prepare to expand your business into Canadian markets. Whether Canada is your first global expansion target or your business is already practiced at expanding into new countries, we can streamline your international hiring process. We handle everything from recruitment to HR services, allowing you to focus on the rest of your global expansion strategy. Contact us today to learn more.