This approach is logical. The challenges are immense, and new owners rely on existing connections and their comprehensive knowledge of the market to minimize unpredictable variables and business uncertainty. For this reason, entrepreneurs usually start with local customers and operate within the local market. They study adoption rates, refine their offering, and begin to see traction, growing their turnover and reaching a stable market position. Some may fail, but that’s part of the journey.

So, what’s next? As the business grows and enables them to save resources for further investment, founders can begin to look beyond domestic borders: what about exporting? Can we serve this unexpected request coming from this far away market?

This is the moment to consider internationalizing the business.

And, after earning well-deserved confidence from leading a market or niche, the question becomes: how do you win this next challenge?

Replicating domestic strategy doesn’t work internationally

While success in the local market can be a strong foundation for launching a company abroad, it can also become a trap. Simply replicating local practices may prove unsuccessful with foreign customers. Adaptation—not only of the product but of the entire company’s operations—will require time, investment, and (a lot of) persistence.

Often entrepreneurs will make that leap to a new market and think, “We did it! International customers are happy, and orders keep coming in! We made it!” only to realize the celebration came too early.

Exporters also need to be prepared for what comes next: the after-sale phase.

Customer assistance peaks, orders are returned, warranty claims absorb unpredictable amounts of cash, and the whole business starts to become less profitable. So how can businesses set themselves up for export success from start to finish?

While roadblocks are inevitable (external factors are numerous and not always predictable through research or experience) entrepreneurs launching new businesses or products can benefit from using a framework to simplify the process.

Start by placing design at the center of all conceptual work. Encompass all activities needed to build, communicate, and deliver a successful and scalable product both nationally and internationally, based on the principles of “Simplicity, Scalability, Safety”.

Designing a product ready for international market growth

Let’s apply this model with concrete ideas. The activities outlined below are not meant to provide a detailed and comprehensive sequence of “tasks” to follow but serve as examples of ways to optimize when setting up or developing a product in multiple markets.

The ultimate goal is to demonstrate how to build a business as scalable as possible, where scalability is achieved by selling both internationally and domestically.

Simplicity

Set up clear, honest communication

Companies that adopt a clear communication strategy are well-suited to expand into international markets with minimal adaptation effort or growing pains.  Create a content strategy that features easy to understand, intuitive messaging and information, supported by simple visual tools like infographics, images, and videos. Distribute them on the channels used by your target markets such as international social media platforms, and be prepared to localize and translate all content for each market. You can start with English content first to be more broadly accessible.

Approach: Use transparent communication, highlighting the pros of your offer without overpromising, and being clear of its limits (of performance, application, etc.). A frank style allows the international customer to understand your product’s real advantages, increasing the chances of positive acceptance upon real expectations[1].

Format: deliver your content in more than one media format (website, brochures, digital ads, videos, etc.), professionally drafted for a wide (multi-country) audience.

Channels: design and launch an attractive and clear company website, and build a consistent presence in international social media.[2]

An additional practical recommendation is to register local domain extensions for targeted markets to protect brand identity and prevent misuse by others in new regions.

While the “.com” domain is still one of the safest options, companies that begin their business domestically often have a local domain. Before entering new markets, companies should register the local domain extension to prevent competitors or former partners from misusing the brand.

Engineer for easy adoption

When designing a new product, engineer it to be easy to set up, use, and maintain. Carefully study the customer’s experience from the moment they receive the product, and provide clear instructions—not only in text, but also through multimedia formats such as QR codes linking to informative landing pages or video tutorials.

Design the product for intuitive operation and simplified maintenance to minimize product returns, increase customer satisfaction, and reduce post-sale support and warranty costs. These benefits are significant for local customers but become essential for buyers located abroad (and sometimes very far away).

In addition, implement an effective sampling strategy to support product adoption by new buyers: offer smaller-sized products, material samples, and customization options all in one convenient kit that can be shipped for trial before a first order.

Since shipping products (often free of charge) can be expensive, compact sample kits are a cost-effective solution for international markets.

Plan for easy customization

Whenever possible, design products to be easily customizable. One way to do this is to add custom features to a single base product, so that parts can be applied as “customized accessories.” While this approach may involve sacrificing certain features, it delivers significant advantages in reduced inventory requirements, lower personalization costs, and faster achievement of economies of scale.

For example, if a manufacturer plans to launch a new chair collection in different colors, this typically means multiplying inventory or incurring extra “last mile” customization costs for each order. Instead, consider using the same wooden base with a standard upholstery, allowing customers (or company staff) to apply colored fabric themselves. The fabric can be shipped with the chair and included in the setup instructions, eliminating additional handling and manufacturing costs.

The same principles apply to modular product design.

By creating products from different modules that can be easily assembled by the customer, manufacturers can ship items in a compact form and achieve significant benefits.

These advantages include economies of scale, easier personalization, and more efficient transportation.

Modular design allows manufacturers to standardize components, streamline production, reduce inventory costs, and offer varied product configurations simply by switching modules. This approach also ensures flexibility to meet customer preferences, simplifies assembly, and lowers shipping expenses, making it ideal for both operational efficiency and international logistics.

Scalability

Optimize your product for efficient logistics and operations

Many of the ideas discussed for making things easy translate directly into operational efficiencies and cost savings. For example, well-engineered product modularity leads to shared components, consolidated semi-finished products, and reduced inventory. This makes it much easier for companies to expand into new markets through more efficient working capital management and optimized packaging and transportation.

The same principle applies to product accessories and packaging. Using standardized packaging for multiple items, planned with dimensions to fit various products and customized only through labeling, reduces complexity, simplifies warehousing, and lowers investment requirements. This streamlined approach supports market expansion and sustainable logistics by minimizing handling, inventory, and overhead.

Safety

Safety as a feature

Safe materials, robust performance, and user safety generally pave a smoother path toward international readiness. Designing a product’s shape, features, and use of high-quality, non-harmful materials, focusing on detailed components and ease of assembly and modularity, will all help reduce compliance requirements for multiple markets.

Modularity brings additional advantages here: for example, sensitive components like an electrical engine can be outsourced or assembled locally, which may significantly simplify or reduce the scope of electrical compliance certifications.

Similarly, if a local partner adds large-volume elements such as a chassis or fills liquids, shipment costs and import tariffs can be lowered substantially.

This strategic design and outsourcing approach facilitate regulatory compliance, reduces logistics costs, and supports efficient entry into international markets.

How it all comes together to build a product ready for export

Management decisions in any company trigger cascading effects across the business’ many sectors and activities. The points listed here have immediate, short-term, and mid-term impacts on a company’s capacity to compete internationally, helping to avoid costly and resource-intensive late corrections.

The above ideas, while sometimes more applicable to certain industries or products, present a general framework of proactive strategies to design competitive and adaptable products for international markets.

Although these design approaches enhance a company’s competitiveness both domestically and internationally, the heightened challenges, costs, and complex competitive dynamics inherent in global markets make these strategies even more crucial. In other words, they simplify and accelerate the company’s path to global success by minimizing painful, resource-intensive corrections in a later stage.

[1] The management costs of an unsatisfied foreign customer can be drastically higher than the same profits which can be generated by the original sale.

[2] Before opening a social media account, the company must be sure to dedicate sufficient resources for regular posting, prompt replies, audience moderation.

The post How to design a product ready for export appeared first on Trade Ready.

In a challenging economy, agile businesses are the ones who come out the winners. Adapt or die, as the saying goes. This article series explores the four general stages of product development:

1. Innovation
2. Design
3. Testing
4. Launch or commercialization

This article will focus on Stage 2: Design!

Once you’ve made the business case for adapting your product to a new market or niche, and passed through the heady innovation stage, it’s time to get to work on the development of your adapted product.

Want to learn more about tailoring design considerations and policies to suit customer preferences? Check out the FITTskills Product Development online workshop!

The Stages of Product Development and Product Adaptation

Product design is much more than the appearance and function of the actual product. It incorporates all product features, including labelling, packaging, design and colour, and takes into consideration culture, regulations and shipping, as well as sales and marketing. Product specifications must comply with regulatory requirements and suit the consumers in the specific markets.

Adaptations to product features have implications for production costs, sales pricing and consumer acceptance.

As a result, the 12 product features should be reviewed as an organization considers developing a new product or adapting an existing product, including:

1. Sizes, weights and measures

What is the standard size of similar products in the foreign market and how does this impact complementary products? What is the standard unit of measurement and does the size deviate from how the product is currently packaged? For example, in Ecuador, beer is most commonly sold in 1-litre bottles, which deviates from common North American packaging conventions. Apparel and footwear sizing also differ dramatically around the world.

2. Packaging preferences

How many units are commonly sold in a package in the target market? What material is preferred in the packaging (e.g. cellophane, plastic, paper, glass)? What level of protection needs to be provided? Protective and uniform packaging can reduce the costs of distribution by facilitating packing for shipping and reducing breakage.

3. Labelling

What regulations must products comply with pertaining to language and labelling requirements? Must labels include ingredients, allergen listings and nutritional facts? Should they state the contents of packaging and product origin?

4. Pricing

How are comparable products priced in the target market? The product to be introduced must be priced competitively and appropriately. A lower-priced product targeted for an exclusive or high-end market may be negatively perceived as being less desirable or of lower quality.

5. Logos, branding and messaging

Should company names, brand names and trademarks be modified for the target market to ensure the logo or trademark will not offend consumers when translated? Modification can also ensure messages are appropriate to the company and the product conveys the same or similar meanings in the language of the foreign market.

6. Quality

What are the regulatory quality standards to sell your product in the target market? What are the cultural assumptions and expectations for quality in your target market? Does the product perform the function it is designed for and does it meet customer expectations? Quality can be a function of commercial viability, current market status or the nature of those supplying the market, i.e. part of the brand and image of the manufacturing exporter.

7. Preferred purchasing method

Where do consumers typically go to purchase similar products? Are they bought locally in markets, in shopping malls, online or at specialty shops?

8. Regulations and prohibitions

What are the pertinent regulations, restrictions and policies concerning import and export controls in the country of production and target markets? These will include regulations governing the recycling of packaging materials, ingredients subject to import controls and prohibited substances. For example, there are strict regulations prohibiting the sale of alcohol in some Muslim countries. Products such as perfumes and mouthwash could include alcohol as an ingredient and should be adapted to be sold in the target market.

9. Design

What are the design preferences of the consumers? How can function be improved through design? The meanings associated with shapes, colours and presentation vary extensively from culture to culture and within demographic segments of the target market. In addition, preferences specific to the target market will also determine the design of a particular product.

For example, a coffee set sold in the U.K. will include a creamer, while sets sold in other parts of Europe will not because Europeans prefer to drink black coffee. Utensils such as knives, forks and spoons are used predominately in Western cultures, whereas chopsticks and rice spoons would be the preferred utensils in Japan and South Korea. Shape, appearance and colours are features that can also apply to packaging as well as the actual product. Japanese consumers’ desire for beautiful packaging has led exporters to redesign cartons and packages specifically for this market.

Design can promote sales by adding value and utility for the consumer. Design policy must also justify manufacturing costs, such as tooling. For example, design might use detachable parts for assembly to allow for standardized packaging and packing that could reduce transport costs.

10. Materials

What are the restrictions, prohibitions and preferences of consumers in the target market? Import regulations will detail materials restrictions and prohibitions, such as ivory. Material preferences will vary depending on the product, regulations, supply and consumer preferences.

11. Engineering

What is the purpose of the product and how will it be used? What are the required product specifications for regulatory compliance for health and safety? The way products are used and ease of installation (if applicable) must be considered and researched carefully. Products must meet the technical specifications and standards of the country. These standards can include power systems, metric measurements and product safety standards. Products are required to meet legal requirements for health and safety, as well as satisfy both industry and consumer quality standards. The technology used must be suitable for the selected market.

12. Warranties and services

After-sales service will give many global companies a competitive advantage. Many companies offer 1-800 hotlines, Internet-based help, low-cost upgrades and extended warranty packages. It would be worth investigating the warranties and services commonly offered for similar products in the target market.

Executing Design Standardization

Whether an organization decides to sell standardized products or adapt products for different markets, there are certain common characteristics that all products should have.

They should be:

• Suitable for the purpose for which they are intended
• Efficient, safe and reliable
• Devoid of features that may offend the customer
• Attractive
• Compliant with all regulations in the target market

National standards may influence consumer tastes, even if those standards are not legislated. Standards can be set by the members of an industry, by the designer or by the consumer. Product designers sometimes work with highly restricted specifications. In the case of large industrial buyers, restrictions may be less technical and more directed by price. These buyers often take an active role in the design activity.

Product design can also address critical supply chain cost drivers. Designers need to balance price as the main purchasing motivation while maintaining product quality.

The quest for better value and lower manufacturing, transportation and inventory management costs may result in:

• Reuse of compatible components from earlier designs
• Uniformity of packaging for more efficient packing/ containerization and handling
• New, cheaper substitute materials
• New methods of manufacturing

Not only does product design meet the needs of the market and the consumer, some changes offer cost benefits for manufacturers.

Administering Design Policy

Design should assist sales promotion by introducing comparative advantage into the product. A product’s comparative advantage might be embedded in a technological advance, increased durability, better value for money or another distinction that will be perceived as a benefit to the consumer.

Organizations should develop a product policy that blends product and services in order to market the most profitable competitive advantage. Such a policy includes the evolution of product lines parallel to existing equipment, human resources, liquid assets, commercial viability and customer goodwill. If the comparative advantage will be short term, it must be offset by outstanding support service to position the product in the marketplace before the competition arrives with similar lines.

For international trade, policies may have to be made to accommodate individual foreign markets, where standardization is not feasible.

It is important to examine the motivation of buyers and include their priorities in any design policy.

Motivation can be either rational, such as convenience, economic benefit or ergonomic advantage, or it can be emotional, such as colour, sex appeal and trendiness. Industrial buyers with strong leanings toward the rational can also be influenced by emotional appeals, especially when products offer similar features at similar cost.

For international trade, the motivation for buyers in each foreign market needs to be assessed.

Check out the rest of the product adaptation article series:

1. Innovation
3. Testing
4. Launch or commercialization 

The post Revitalize your business through product adaptation: Stage 2 – Design appeared first on Trade Ready.

The major problem companies face with standardizing products for international distribution is that such standards are not the same in all international markets.

The same kind of logic that has prompted governments to pass legislation to protect consumers is now promoting stricter laws to protect the environment. Companies must also be concerned with the health, safety and environmental standards that might apply to their products and operations at home and abroad.

When discussing regulatory standards, the following terms are commonly used:

1. Standards

Standards are documented agreements that contain technical specifications or other criteria to be used as rules, guidelines or definitions of characteristics. The aim of standards is to ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for their purpose.

2. Performance standards

Performance standards link performance expectations of a job position within a company to customer requirements, customer satisfaction and competitive performance.

3. Work standards

Work standards refer to the amount and quality of work or output employees are expected to produce within a given timeframe. They are often referred to as measures of productivity. Some companies call these performance standards.

4. Customer service standards

Customer service standards reflect the levels of service that a company believes it must provide to meet marketing goals, as well as profit and market-share objectives.

5. ISO 9000 Standards

International standards help make international business transactions simpler and increase the reliability and effectiveness of the goods and services. Many quality systems standards have been developed in different countries and industries over the past 25 years. With the growth of international trade, companies found that they repeatedly  had to justify their quality procedures and methods to national and foreign customers, often at significant expense. The need for a single set of widely accepted quality standards was obvious.

In response, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed a series of quality-management and quality-assurance standards, which were published as the ISO 9000 series in 1987. The ISO 9000 series represents a worldwide compilation of the best quality practices on which there is general agreement.

The ISO 9000 series of generic, non-product-specific standards determine what elements are required to achieve a quality system. They stress the need to build quality into products and services, with the goal of minimizing costly after-the-fact inspections, rework and repairs, and therefore improving the company’s bottom line.

They are designed to be used by service organizations and manufacturers and do not specify which technologies or processes must be used.

A company does not have to be a multinational or have business overseas to benefit from using these standards. Both large- and small-sized companies with international businesses have used the ISO 9000 series as a route to open markets and improved competitiveness.

Although for most products and services there is still no legal requirement to adopt ISO 9000, in Europe, Australia and elsewhere, the series is being entrenched in regulations for certain types of goods and services.

More importantly, compliance with the requirement of an ISO 9000 standard is increasingly becoming a prerequisite for doing business. Many governments are adopting the standard in their own procurement activities. Most large corporations have done so, and small- and medium-sized companies are following suit. As a result, the possibility that  compliance will be commercially driven is very likely.

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Companies can succeed by studying customer needs (which are not necessarily the same thing as customer wants) and by understanding them better than perhaps even customers do themselves.  In this article, you’ll find 11 global business product characteristics customers value.

Finding new sources of value for customers requires careful market research that should be treated as an ongoing process, since needs and preferences change continuously.

Value can take many forms in the eyes of customers. The following are some of the more common global business product characteristics valued by different groups of customers:

1. Price

Virtually all customers like a deal. They will be satisfied with the company if they feel it offers them a product or service comparable to the competition’s at a lower price.

A low-cost strategy is one of the two fundamental approaches that can be pursued by managers (the other being product differentiation).

In today’s complex organizations, there are literally scores or points along the value chain where measures can be taken to reduce costs.

There is, of course, also the strategy of predatory pricing in which companies with deeper pockets can afford to slash prices for longer than their smaller rivals.

2. Prestige

Paradoxically, there are a small number of markets where the advantage comes from a high price tied to luxury items, designer labels, or what might be termed “snob appeal.”

Companies like BMW or Rolex cater to this type of market, charging a significant premium for their logo on a product.

In such markets the manager’s task is to maintain an aura of exclusivity. This may derive more from the way in which a product or service is marketed, rather than how it is produced.

3. Features

This is a very broad category that ultimately depends on the specifics of each product. An excellent example of a market driven by features is the cell phone business.

Today’s phones are no longer just gadgets for making calls. They include screens, cameras, and substantial memory, and can be used for Internet access, texting, listening to music, and downloading videos.

In this kind of a business, managers will look for ways of incorporating features that no one else has.

The trick is to ensure that the features are appropriate to the product, that they are useful to customers, and that they work.

4. Timeliness

The word timeliness should not be taken to imply that getting to market first is always best, as anyone confronted with green bananas at the supermarket will know.

Timeliness really means getting there at exactly the right time. In the grocery business, this means at the peak of freshness.

In the retail electronic business, it means delivering the newest gaming system to customers while interest is keenest and before everyone on the block has it.

Want to learn more about how to establish a competitive advantage with the best design options for adapting products and an effective plan to implement good development and testing processes? Check out the FITTskills Products & Services for a Global Market online course.

5. Selection

In some businesses, customers value having a large selection of items from which to choose. This is especially typical of clothing stores, but the same principle extends to many other consumer goods.

Traditionally, managers tried to stock as many items as possible in a store, though this tied up inventory and was expensive.

Amazon has demonstrated how catalogues, on-line shopping and next day delivery provide customers with a range of options that would have been prohibitively expensive in a conventional retail outlet.

6. Reliability

Reliability can be interpreted in several ways. One is that the product works exactly as advertised, so a software program will not keep crashing unexpectedly.

For some products, such as batteries, the concept of reliability is interpreted as being long-lasting. And in the case of power tools, the concept really translates into ruggedness or durability.

Another way of interpreting reliability is that the company actually does exactly what it says it will do. For example, rebate programs will be held in contempt by customers if the issuing company does not actually follow through and remit the promised discount.

Finally, reliability can mean a guarantee that something will be available when customers want it. Retailers will initially stock many copies of popular new technology to satisfy initial demand, then decrease their stock as demand falls.

7. Service

In many industries, the sale is only the beginning of an ongoing relationship between the buyer and seller.

Most computer manufacturers and software developers include a promise of 24/7 technical support along with their products. Car manufacturers bundle regular maintenance visits under warranty along with their vehicles.

8. Responsiveness

The ability of a company to respond to customers can also be a source of value.

Responsiveness can occur long before a sale is made when the customer is still “kicking the tires” or looking for information, and it can extend long after the sale is made and the customer is looking for the resolution of a problem.

In this area, a company’s representatives, whether they are full-time employees or commissioned sales agents in a foreign market, are integral to the creation of customer value.

They should be provided with the tools to enable them to fulfill this role. This might include training, effective sales material, the provision of market intelligence and leads.

9. Convenience

In some instances making it easy for customers to find out about or purchase a product is decisive. The growing popularity of ecommerce and the success of companies such as Amazon, testify to the importance of convenience to customers.

Dell computers specialized in delivering its products directly to customers’ homes or offices.

In some cases, even grocery stores are allowing customers to shop and pay online, after which purchases are delivered to their doorstep on the same day.

10. Unrecognized needs

Some industries create new needs about which consumers were completely unaware.

Pharmaceutical companies spend years promoting research into medical conditions (e.g. restless leg syndrome) that had not received any attention. They will fund research studies and help to publish them, after which they will announce that they have products that address the condition.

A similar strategy was pursued in the creation of the Big Bertha golf driver (Callaway Golf), which was larger than previous golf clubs and positioned as a club that would significantly improve the performance of even indifferent golfers. As a result, sales went through the roof.

11. The cool factor

There is a significant category of products that appeal to the teenage and early adult demographic. The source of this appeal may be hard to define but it affects items such as clothes, games, music, movies and gear (technology).

Being cool may be associated with characteristics such as design and immediacy, but a large part of what makes “cool” so appealing is precisely that it is appealing: everybody else wants it.

Managers playing to this attribute have to be skilled at creating the right kind of buzz to imply that everybody wants the item, and therefore, so should you.

Beyond any of the factors described above is the broader consideration of quality.

The concept of quality means more than just free of defects or errors. The word is a bit of a catchall and can be taken to mean many different things.

Indeed, most of the features in the preceding list of global business product characteristics can be seen as contributing to quality. Many organizations have come to embrace the concept of quality as a source of competitive advantage (e.g. “At Ford, Quality is Job 1”).

The post 11 global business product characteristics that customers value appeared first on Trade Ready.

Product design can also address the costs involved with transportation and inventory. These are often critical supply chain cost drivers, especially when inventory levels must be kept high to ensure service levels.

Product design can address these supply chain issues using the following three key components:

• Packaging and transportation
• Concurrent and parallel processing
• Standardization

Packing and transportation

One of the most important areas of product design is ensuring that products can be packed and stored efficiently. Goods that can be packed compactly are obviously cheaper to transport. A common example of this use of product design is flat-pack furniture.

As well as cost reductions, retailers are more likely to choose a supplier with products that take up less storage space and that can be stacked easily.

Weight is also a product-design issue that will affect transportation costs. A company might find that more expensive, lighter materials are cost effective when reduced transportation expenses are taken into account.

Concurrent and parallel processing

Lead times associated with suppliers, manufacturing processes and deliveries are a major interruption to the flow of the global supply chain.

In many manufacturing situations, a series of products or components are produced and then put together to make a final product. Delays can occur between each stage in the manufacturing process.

In concurrent and parallel processing, the manufacturing process is redesigned so that all production steps take place at the same time. This reduces manufacturing lead time and reduces inventory costs.

Standardization

Companies can standardize product components or processes. In product standardization, common components are used in many different products. This reduces the requirements for extensive component inventories and reduces costs.

In process standardization, the manufacturing process is standardized as much as possible for all different products. Products are only customized and differentiated late in the production process.

Process standardization usually involves redesigning products so that they can be customized late in production.

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