Comprehensive marketing information to help a small software & services firm to expand into a new foreign market
Diosi, Aniko (2014)
Diosi, Aniko
HAAGA-HELIA ammattikorkeakoulu
2014
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2014112416592
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2014112416592
Tiivistelmä
Trilobita Informatics Excl. Co. deals with software and related services targeting business customers. Since the domestic market is getting more saturated, internationalization of this small IT firm became an important strategic issue. Internationalization process has already started for one of the core software products with building up a reseller network word-wide. However, now it is time to look for other markets for the rest of the product offering of the firm through a different channel.
The management has decided to first enter Poland as part of the internationalization process due to the country's economic stability and market size. However, the case company lacks marketing information on entering the Polish market, which brings up the research problem for this paper. The thesis analysed various secondary sources with the help of market analytical tools together with primary data gained from a cross-sectional survey research using interview instrument. Secondary sources were researched to be able to depict the macro and micro environment in Poland, while primary data collected from the interviews with a sample of 100 Polish market players helped to describe customer demand characteristics in the given market.
The research outcomes revealed that the case company has strong expertise in document management and customer relationship management software involving technological know-how to satisfy tailor-made needs as well as it has acknowledged references both in SME and large enterprise segments. This strength perfectly matches the external market opportunity in Poland: the rising demand from small and medium sized companies for custom-built business solutions. Although, secondary data and the interview results also imply that there are already numerous custom-built solutions on the Polish market due to tense competition between current market players.
The aforesaid results contribute to the appropriate planning of future market entry actions that seizes strengths and market opportunities, but avoids all possible obstacles. To support such action planning, the research paper finally suggests licensing as a market entry mode with a detailed reasoning for the management team of the case company.
Since the current research had some limitations in terms of its scope, suggestions for future research projects were also identified that could examine future competitors and competitor software solutions in a more detailed manner from marketing point of view or identify possible future business partners.
The management has decided to first enter Poland as part of the internationalization process due to the country's economic stability and market size. However, the case company lacks marketing information on entering the Polish market, which brings up the research problem for this paper. The thesis analysed various secondary sources with the help of market analytical tools together with primary data gained from a cross-sectional survey research using interview instrument. Secondary sources were researched to be able to depict the macro and micro environment in Poland, while primary data collected from the interviews with a sample of 100 Polish market players helped to describe customer demand characteristics in the given market.
The research outcomes revealed that the case company has strong expertise in document management and customer relationship management software involving technological know-how to satisfy tailor-made needs as well as it has acknowledged references both in SME and large enterprise segments. This strength perfectly matches the external market opportunity in Poland: the rising demand from small and medium sized companies for custom-built business solutions. Although, secondary data and the interview results also imply that there are already numerous custom-built solutions on the Polish market due to tense competition between current market players.
The aforesaid results contribute to the appropriate planning of future market entry actions that seizes strengths and market opportunities, but avoids all possible obstacles. To support such action planning, the research paper finally suggests licensing as a market entry mode with a detailed reasoning for the management team of the case company.
Since the current research had some limitations in terms of its scope, suggestions for future research projects were also identified that could examine future competitors and competitor software solutions in a more detailed manner from marketing point of view or identify possible future business partners.