The Strategic Planning - Differences of International and Domestic Market Planning

Introduction

The strategic marketing planning of any business can be summarised in to three broad components like

1. The analysis of its micro and macro environments like its potential customers, its competitors, the economic, political and the technological standing etc

2. The analysis and interpretation of the company's broad activity with respect to its marketing mix

3. The analysis of its marketing system; like marketing research, objectives etc

[William C. Taylor and Alan M. Webber]

The trade liberalisations, advance in technology, improved communication networks and globalisation coupled with other internal factors of an organisation accelerated the contemporary business environment, which directly affected the marketing structure and process of each and every organisation (Thomas and Gupta, 2005).

If we compare the domestic and international marketing strategies, it can be seen that in the domestic level the strategy planning concentrates simply on two principal aspects like

1. A target market identification

2. Developing a marketing mix which is suitable for the identified markets

The issues are same for International marketing, but the approach is different. Market standardisation or adaptation is the two different and broad choices of strategic planning. Sometimes the strategies are also developed by clubbing these together.

Look at this example of Coca- cola, it become the successful brand all over the world because of its international marketing strategies. Coca cola not adopted the strategy of ‘complete marketing mix standardisation'. Coca cola virtually demonstrated that global thinking and local implementation is a better strategy for success. Coca cola does its sales promotion, distribution and customer services completely considering the local needs. In Brazil, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Great Britain, and Spain, Coca cola is a billion- dollar plus super brand, but for its success especially in Japan, it invested considerably for establishing a local sales force, identifying the complex distribution channels, vending machine sales, and through product diversification [Canned coffee and Qoo]

Similarly in India, Coca Cola Company introduced its local brand Thums Up, which virtually competes with its original Coco Cola brand, and in some of the state's the sales volume of Thums Up, is more than that of its flagship brand [Chad Terhune, 2006].

The differences in strategic planning for international and domestic marketing can be done basically through the analysis of the company's micro and macro environments. Various strategic