WINNING STRATEGIES FOR 7 COMPANIES TO GO INTERNATIONAL

Many agree that a company must be ready to go international from the very beginning... "DAY 1, fits global"! My experience is that there is no magic formulas, but there are best practices and strategies.

The right timing for internationalization will vary from model to model.?

·???????Early internationalization applies to models that are easy to replicate with a global application, such as user-generated content (Facebook, Wikipedia)

·???????Strategic internationalization over time is recommended for a complex sales model such as a B2B offering (Kyriba, ReachFive...). The prerequisites for successful internationalization are numerous, and if they are not considered ... the risks involved can jeopardize the entire company.

·???????Hybrid Internationalization, an approach applicable to replicable models with translation issues BUT responding to a local issue.

So, what ocean do companies land in when looking to internationalize and at what cost do they come out on top?

It takes only a few minutes of reading to see the choice of several companies, according to their business models: B2B, B2C, and B2B2C.

.... And to give you my experience, my 2 cents ;-)

I have isolated 3 B2B and 2 B2C players and 2 hybrids models!

B2B MODELS

a)?????Kyriba – Cash Management Vendor?[Total immersion for US]

b)?????Talentsoft – HR & Talent management Vendor?[US penetration by European key account customers]

c)?????Iadvize – Conversational Vendor?[from remote management to physical representation]

B2C MODELS

d)?????BlablaCar – Care Pooling?[by relevance]

e)?????Konbini – New generation media?[through local representation to trusted network]

HYBRIDES MODELS

f)??????Vente-privée – E-commerce?[through national leadership]

g)?????MyScript – IA handwriting?[Internationalization in day 1]

B2B MODELS

a) KYRIBA - CASH MANAGEMENT VENDOR?

[TOTAL IMMERSION for US]

Kyriba was created in 2000, in France, by a cohort of XRT talents (of which I was a contributor), bought by Sage, and under the direction of Alain Fraiberger, my boss, who had for endeavor to build a SaaS model similar to the on-premises offering (a spin-off of the XRT one).

Jean-Luc Robert bought the company in 2004 and succeeded in a major gamble, bringing the offer to its highest international deployment.

Kyriba first expanded into Spain and England, and then implemented a strategy of conquest through immersion in the U.S. market in?2010, transferring its headquarters to San Diego,?6 years after its acquisition.

A solid approach: Be strong in its home market and focus on developing country-by-country, focusing on few countries.

ITS KEY SUCCESS FACTORS:?

·???????A good knowledge of the market: market studies, needs analysis

·???????A perfect market fit: the product must be aligned with the market, without revolutionizing the roadmap (no more than 10%) and by focusing on the "killer functions". If the effort to adapt the product is too high, then the company is not mature to penetrate the target country.?

·???????Transfer of skills: Transfer of key employees to the target country - the image of sustainability in the eyes of American customers is at stake?

·???????Penetration by stages: The US market is to be broken down into East and West - Kyriba started with the West and then 5 years later attacked the East, with the creation of its office in NYC.

·???????The?company culture is fundamental: onboarding, certifications & offshore training centers, global and regional sharing and transparency of results, objectives, quarterly kickoff ... and.?Of course, governance (the general management must even be in the field?to conquer the first local customer base) and agile management for remote team management. It is essential to involve 100% of the employees in this?adventure, and this?is achieved by demonstrating the international conquest dynamic while ensuring that everyone has the means to succeed locally. People are the key: globalizing know-how, creating a corporate culture to create and stimulate a sense of belonging. Trust, pride and listening are key success criteria.

·???????Clear?objectives and an adapted team: creation of an on-site sales team with the objective of conquering the first corpus of 25 renowned clients within a 3-year horizon. The first clients are strategic and drive growth. Kyriba has won Airbnb, Uber, Dropbox, "as a start".

·???????Massive?investments: Such a method requires a significant investment, but opens doors to significant financing and the ability to bring on board unusual talent (from France and elsewhere)

b) TALENTSOFT - HR AND TALENT MANAGEMENT PUBLISHER?

[BY MAJOR EUROPEAN CLIENTS]

Created in 2007, after 8 years dedicated to the expansion of European countries through their large accounts such as Scandinavia (market sensitive to innovation and lack of leaders), Germany (the highest rate of grouping of target companies active internationally) Switzerland and Benelux (the regions with the highest number of multinational head offices) and then England (a very competitive market), TalentSoft set out to conquer the United States with the support of its major European groups and funds such as Goldman Sachs.

Talentsoft's deployment strategy through the subsidiaries of major groups has been a guarantee of reliability and credibility.

ITS KEY SUCCESS FACTORS:?

·???????Analysis, in-depth study?and integration of local regulations, observation of local best practices.

·???????Product innovation: an evolution every two weeks based on listening to customers and interfaces available in 25 languages.

·???????High quality and local customer service: 24/7 coverage in 3 time zones

·???????An international digital marketing strategy?with massive investments to obtain 60% of leads via this channel

·???????Decentralized management?and the choice of a single language, accompanied by a 2-month onboarding process at headquarters

·???????A Customer Service team with international profiles?and the recruitment of experienced profiles

c) IADVIZE - CONVERSATIONAL PLATFORM

[FROM REMOTE MANAGEMENT TO PHYSICAL REPRESENTATION]

3 years after its creation, in 2013, Iadvize launched its first European subsidiaries, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom, from its headquarters in Nantes, and 4 years later, in 2017, opened an office in Boston (7 years after the company's creation).

KEY SUCCESS FACTORS:?

·???????Going out to scout the field: For the deployment in Boston, an employee from the headquarters was sent to study the market, establish business cases, ... to finally build a team.

·???????The opening of foreign offices?is done in territories with high competition and/or potential. The other countries are managed from the head office with or without local partners.

·???????Have bilingual leaders and build international teams

·???????Adopt an ABM?(Account-Based-Marketing) strategy. Subsidiaries are quality early adopters.

B2C MODELS

1.???BLABLACAR – COVOITURAGE

[RELEVANCE IS KEY]?

BlabaCar's is not adapted to the American model (too long a distance to cover, lower cost per km than elsewhere, no tolls, etc.).?

Market?conquest?criteria are dense and based primarily on local behavior, which can help to evaluate the relevance of the value proposition.

It is necessary to evaluate the cost benefit of car-sharing. The financial motivation to share costs is the main criterion. This is why BlablaCar has focused on Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Germany, Ukraine and Russia, Turkey, India, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Serbia, Brazil, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The first country to be penetrated, Italy, was opened 3.5 years after its creation, then the other countries (solo or in regions) were opened approximately every 12 months.

As a part of the development process, local offices are opened with local employees (but with training at the headquarters in Paris), with local culture being an essential part of the process.

THE MAIN CRITERIA FOR ADAPTATION:?

·???????Communication, semantics?(impossible to translate literally) and?marketing?are totally aligned with the local context (e.g.: overloaded transportation in India, cost reduction in France, ...)

·???????Product Fit:?Adaptation of some functionalities to the country, e.g. verification of identity documents in Turkey and India, or integration of Maestro, a payment method in Belgium.

·???????Corporate culture: Blablacar brings meaning to each employee and reinforces this meaning through a real strategy of pride of belonging.

e) KONBINI - A NEW GENERATION MEDIA?

[THROUGH THE CREATION OF A NETWORK OF TRUST].

This is one of my favorite son's websites. An example of target alignment and therefore a key partner for major brands!

The challenge? Monetizing the audience, with a strategy oriented, mainly, towards the globalization of advertisers' budgets.

ITS APPROACH TO INTERNATIONALIZATION??

·???????Its clients are their key penetrating capabilities?

·???????A detailed analysis of the target market: mobile equipment rate, social network penetration rate, the share of millennials in the population...

·???????Testing, testing and more testing from headquarters, (1) with selected content and locally produced content to measure engagement and evaluate production pooling capabilities, (2) measuring advertiser appetite through campaign launch support by our clients, (3) testing partnerships to establish links with country insiders.

DAY 1" in internationalization does not work in this case because it is not a translation, therefore not a duplication.

Founded in 2008, the first international developments were made 3 years after the creation, starting in 2011, and then on average every 24 months.

They imposed themselves on a?local?presence by opening offices and establishing a dual content management system from local production and mutualization production (understand content recycling) after their tests were passed (understand the success of their main advertisers' expansion plans).?Local production represents approximately 1/3 of the total production.

Note: the founders have relocated the headquarters to London.

Content producers are experts who most often fear the globalization of content. Therefore, Konbini had to work hard to create a strong corporate culture and a transversal organization instead of a pyramidal one.

HYBRID MODELS

f) PRIVATE SALE (VEEPEE SINCE 2019)?

[THROUGH NATIONAL LEADERSHIP]?

Penetration of the American market: YES; YES; but no ;-)

This model is rather "dependent" on the brands' international development strategy.

A dual strategy has been put in place, one organic and the other through external acquisition.

Vente-Privée was created in 2001 and has been internationalizing since 2007, first organically by choosing countries with a strong local brand presence and a large inventory, such as Spain, Italy and England, and then through external acquisitions to accelerate development and make up for countries with less brand representation.

The Americas, more a "personal" dream than a "reasonable" strategy:

Despite renowned financial support and initial successes during the first three years of development in the territory, Vente-Privée backed out and finally withdrew from the American market. A market that requires too many choices and investments.

An approach incompatible with the group's investment choices: Large B2B investments without the necessary marketing and communication investments. The ROI between the cost of acquiring the country and the timing of profitability spoke for itself.

g) MYSCRIPT - INTELLIGENT MANUSCRITING

[INTERNATIONALIZATION IN DAY 1]

By integrating several languages at the very beginning of its creation in 1998, international deployment was?possible?from the very beginning.

They do not have any international offices. All occurs at the head office in Nantes with 20 different nationalities, with for as much as a 99,5% turnover in the global market.

MyScript deployed a strong local representation, but with other means:

·???????Working closely with local representatives to land difficult deals, understanding the local culture, developing a network

·???????Investing in marketing and communication heavily.?Cross-channel marketing (digital, but also international trade shows, round tables, meet-ups, direct-talk operations, etc.) and the funnel-based transformation strategy associated with partnerships in the territory are key to activating penetration and generating a quality pipeline. But not only that! Also the way to implement a customer experience program including a cross-functional continuous improvement process.

The culture of the target country is critical. The methods of market penetration for the same company will vary according to the target country and its culture. Thus, alternative development models will have to be defined (immersion, joint-venture, business partners...).

For example, the Japanese or Chinese market... local representatives are essential. They provide their network, their native knowledge of the local business culture and their commercial skills to help companies land new opportunities.

MY 2 CENT’S

Even if everything leads us to believe that today's companies are named as mythological creatures, there is no such thing as a miracle recipe.

The successes or failures of internationalization in which I participated were mainly linked to ONE THING, preparation. Yes, you have to go fast, but fast doesn't mean rushing in with what management thinks it has understood about the key factors of success!?

SO, BACK TO THE FUNDAMENTALS OF KEY FACTORS:?

·???????A thorough and tested knowledge of the target country

·???????A product fit, not exceeding 25 to 30% of the roadmap

·???????Excellent customer service

·???????Local front-end teams

·???????Strong global corporate culture and clear vision

·???????Massive marketing & communication investments

·???????Alternative internationalization models depending on the country

·???????Knowing how to give up a country according to its model

·???????Knowing how to work in harmony with your customers - the key growth vector for internationalization

Internationalization is not only positive for business. It also transforms the company's culture and allows to attract talent with an entrepreneurial mindset and a quest. It creates meaning, dynamics and enriches the careers of employees, allowing them to surpass themselves by offering them the benefits of each culture.

It is also, for some, a new perspective, that of going abroad, or simply of traveling and sharing.

There is no single miracle recipe. Each company, depending on its model, its structure, its ambitions, its resources ... has its own recipe.

Whatever the case, I guarantee you it is a fantastic adventure! And most often it's the journey rather than the outcome of the success that is the most satisfying.