Managing either a large project or a very small one, every businessman has a basic question every year: Where can I invest my money in a more efficient way?
One of the more surprising answers we have is in Sdifa, the export group, realized by 15 companies (click here to know more about them www.sdifagroup.com). It has set an example of how to maximize the results investing in marketing and international trade.
It was time to close the year and the data, facilitated by the Chambers of Commerce and the Group Servicommerce Consulting surprise: almost 15% more than 2008. How is it possible that in the middle of the crisis, these companies sell more abroad? We should start by analyzing the following table to understand:
What happened in 2008? Apparently something similar, but with great differences.
Let’s assume that the world economical context was a disaster in 2009 and during that year the objective for many companies was to survive. Then, why did exportations grow up? A quick look gives us some answers: New markets were incorporated (India, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Angola from which we only have indirect data and we haven’t included in the statistics…) and other ones likes Morocco increased in a significant way (which entered into recession). In turn, UK market was stronger depending on the financial times in the recent history and the efforts made by the companies for supporting themselves in the sterling country meant not to be erased from the market.
“If half of my investment I make in marketing is wasted, I would like to know which that half is”.
This sentence, repeated over and over again, reveals a worry: How can I know that I am investing my budget properly in International Trade?
The final objective is obtaining the biggest income with the available budget; and a good example of a good profitability, being all the variables of ROI analyzed, is the Furniture Internationalization Program that carried out Sdifa companies (managed by CITMA and UNEMAC and supported financially by EXTENDA and the Innovation and Development Agency of Andalusia) during 2009, showing the following investment:
As we can see in the above table, the obtained investment percentage in interventions and the results are very satisfactory. When the year has been finished , we have also realized that the companies, considered individually, also obtained a proportional return to the investment they made.
A decision model
A centered decision model whose dynamics is based on the common sense and in strategic marketing decisions (they participated in Trade Fairs in UK , Dubai, India and Morocco, web pages were set up aimed to specifiers , direct trade missions to Ukraine, Baltic Countries, Kazakhstan, etc).
Where is the key to know if the Investment Feedback is positive? In this case, we apply a strategic positioning planning matrix, valid for both brands and manufacturers introducing in the market. This matrix divides the attention, the wish and the purchase, distinguishing between indifferent products and products that can be sold in the market.
The scheme would be:
For a product to enter the market, it’s necessary to consider the whole process where the key is the relevance given by the objective client to the product.
It is not enough to select the country properly but to introduce in a convenient way crossing the borders of the process, and that is the key to understand why the investments are or not profitable. This will be the challenge for the following years.
As a conclusion we can say that the investments in international trade, like the case of Sdifa, are profitable whenever they are made with the adequate planning. Increasing the exports nowadays is something difficult and at the same time necessary. The sum of the exports of the SDIFA companies has managed to do it and because of this, all of us who have seen involved in this work-process congratulate ourselves.
International Trade Department, CITMA
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