Q. How can I create an international business plan for project 4 for MBA 670?

Project 4 for MBA 670 asks you to choose a product and country from lists provided in your classroom and to then create a business plan that discusses how you could expand a company's business into your chosen country by introducing your chosen product to that country.

Following is information that should help you find the information that you've been asked to include in your business plan.

• Main competitors: One way to find the main companies that already offer the product that you chose in the country that you chose is to find the NAICS code that applies to the product's industry (see the information in your classroom and/or NAICS Codes for more information about how to find an industry's NAICS code; many medical devices, for instance, will have NAICS code 334510, which covers electromedical and electrotherapeutic apparatus manufacturing, or NAICS code 334516, which covers analytical laboratory instrument manufacturing, or NAICS code 339113, which covers surgical appliance and supplies manufacturing) and to then run an industry search in Hoovers for that NAICS code. On the industry overview page, scroll down to the Geographic Segmentation section and click on the hyperlinked number in the Companies column to see a list of companies. (Note that you may need to click on the “Show Rows with Values Less Than 5% of Total” link in order to see the country that you chose.)
  
  Alternately, if you know the name of a company that makes the product that you chose in the country that you chose, you can use databases such as Business Market Research Collection, Business Source Ultimate, Hoovers, and Nexis Uni to look up the company and find its competitors.
  
  For more information about finding a company's competitors, see Finding a Company's Competitors.
   
• Forecasted market and segment growth: See Business Research: Trends and Projections for tips on finding industry forecasts, including financial forecasts. If you're having trouble finding forecasts for the specific product that you chose, you may need to broaden your search to find forecasts for the broader category that includes the product that you chose (e.g., instead of looking for forecasts for incubators for babies, you may need to look for forecasts for medical devices/equipment).

You may be able to find relevant forecasts in Statista by running a search for your chosen product and country -- for example:

(Note that, unlike most other library databases, Statista uses an implied AND; you shouldn't enter AND between search terms.)

You may also need to make educated inferences about the need for the product that you chose in the country that you chose based on the country's demographics. see Business Research: Finding Demographic or Psychographic Information for search tips.

• Competitive edge: Since you need to discuss ways that your company could gain a competitive edge over other companies, one way to find an area where your company could stand out would be to look at SWOT analyses for some of the companies that you identified as being competitors to your company; the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that others have found for those companies should give you some ideas of how your company could set itself apart from the competition. To find companies’ SWOT analyses, see Business Research: SWOT Analysis
• Value chain activity relocation: Use the course material and links in your classroom to help you decide which activity or activities from your company’s value chain you might want to relocate to your chosen country.
• Legal business entity to market the chosen product in the chosen country: Use the course material and links in your classroom to help you determine the best mode of entry for introducing your chosen product to your chosen country.
• Impact of the chosen country’s legal, ethical, and cultural standards on the company’s operations in the country: Use the course material and links in your classroom to help you understand how your company’s expansion to your chosen country might be affected by formal or informal structures in place in that country.

For additional information about starting or expanding a business into a particular country, you might also want to consult:

• Santander's Establish Overseas guides and/or Analyze Markets guides
• The World Bank’s Doing Business guides
• Michigan State University’s globalEDGE country information
• the International Monetary Fund’s country information
• Lex Mundi’s Guides to Doing Business
• the Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration’s Country Commercial Guides
• Nexis Uni’s BMI Country Risk Reports
• Statista's Country & Region Reports

You may also want to use databases such as ABI/INFORM Collection and Business Source Ultimate to search for articles that discuss the market for your chosen product in your chosen country or that discuss regulations that could affect how your product might fare in the country, etc. To do that, you can run searches such as:

• [product] AND [country] AND market*
• [product] AND [country] AND (customer* OR consumer* OR purchaser* OR buyer*)
• [product] AND [country] AND (law* OR regulation*)

If you need further assistance with finding information for project 4, please Ask a Librarian.

If you have questions about the requirements for project 4, please contact your instructor.