ICT & Online Strategy For Market Entry
In todays world business relies on Information Technology like never before and that means that it has to be an important consideration when you launch into a new International Market. With an excellent International IT and Online Strategy many of the other logistical problems which face business doing business overseas are solved, without it they are multiplied.
Some Important Points To Consider
1) Domain Name
Every country in the world has it's own range of domains e.g. in the UK we have .co.uk. Do you need to register the domain names for Holland or can you use the internationally recongnised .com domain name. This comes down to if you want to be seen to be a local company in Holland, or an international business with a local office.
Also remember that a domain name is part of your brand identity, you might need to consider registering the local versions to protect your brand.
2) E-Mail Systems
Most business can't survive withour e-mail, can your existing system cope with the requirements of staff based in Holland or do you need to partner with a local Internet Service Provider.
3) Websites
Do you need a seperate website for Holland or just a section on your International website? Do you need to consider translating portions of your website for Holland? Where should you host your website for Holland? If you do business online what are the security issues reated to Holland?
4) Search Engines
When you search in the UK you don't see many companies from Holland in the results so don't expect people searching in Holland to see your website if you have previously just traded in the UK. If you want your site to appear on the search engines in Holland then you need to optimise your site for Holland.
5) Networking & Filesharing
Do you want your people in Holland to be able to access your corporate network to share files with you back in the UK, if so you need to look at setting up a secure 'Virtual Private Network'. You need to set policies to allow your staff access to what they need without releasing your entire corporate records to the whole world.
6) Customer Relationship Management
How are you going to keep track of your in Holland? Are you just going to rely on your local staff, or do you want to know whats happening back in the UK? If you are ever going to speak to them you will need details of what has been said in previous communications, the answer is a web based CRM system which can be accessed by all staff regardless of geographic location.
Export To Holland can help guide you through these issues.
To find out more about how Export To Holland can help your business, please call us on +44 (0) 870 879 5315
or e-mail us at info@exporttoholland.co.uk
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