The approach to international markets by SMEs : a case study of a consultancy firm specialised on the internationalisation of enterprises

• Autor(a) principal: Sousa, Miguel Pedro de
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/23623
• topic: Internationalisation of enterprises; Internationalisation of SMEs; Company analysis; Industry analysis; Country analysis; Competitive analysis; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

Given the role that international trade has for companies, economies, and societies, this works focus on the internationalisation of companies, more precisely of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), to shed more light into a field that should be relevant for any manager, even if the internationalisation of its company’s operations is not in its short-term strategy. It is of paramount importance for any company to take an in-depth examination of its business; its products/services; its business environment; its country; and foreign countries’ business environments. This work begins by making a thorough analysis of the process of internationalisation, in all its dimensions, and proposes a step-by-step process of analysis of the different aforementioned factors, based on the contributions of Svend Hollensen’s (2014) work, completed with other remarkable authors’ recommendations to the fields of international management and international marketing. The critical analysis of the literature is complemented with a case study of the operations of a consultancy firm, Konsulting Group International, specialised on the internationalisation of enterprises. Among other relevant findings, the case study highlighted that business networks and close relationships with relevant stakeholders are crucial for the success of the internationalisation process, but also that it is essential to carefully contextualise the company’s product in the international target.