Market Research
Internationalizing the Small and Medium Sized Firm – four cases
One result of having a very fast internationalization process is that the homework that is needed prior to starting expanding is not always done thoroughly enough. In the case of Avanza this lead to significant problems along the way. This is not anything specific for the companies in this study. As mentioned in previous chapters, evidence show that young firms tend to neglect market research, and that hunch feelings play an important part in the decision process (Johansson 2000). Support is also found in the study by Jansson (2001) which shows that planning is less common among SME’s. This may result in that not all different options of internationalizing are considered carefully enough. In the case of Projectplace they stated that they should have had explored different options in more detail before expanding. Specifically they would have liked to furthermore investigate the option of using sales-agents instead of opening own offices. This does not necessarily mean that it had been a better option, but it is, of course, more cost efficient to investigate this before making any investments.
