International strategic management

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International Strategic Management is an ongoing management planning process aimed at developing strategies to enable an organization to compete internationally. The process of developing a particular international strategy is referred to as 'strategic planning'.

International strategies for multiple countries are similar to the strategies used in a single country. An organization must be able to answer the following quetions:

What products or services does the organization intend to sell?
Where and how will the organization make those products or services?
Where and how will the organization sell those products or services?
Where and how will the organization acquire the resources?
How does the organization expect to outperform its competitors?

[edit] Complexity in developing an international strategy

Developing an international strategy for an organization in a foreign country is more complex than developing a strategy for an organization in a domestic country.

In a domestic country, you only have to consider one national government, one currency, one accounting system, one political and legal system and usually a similar culture. In foreign countries, you are talking about multiple governments, multiple currencies, multiple accounting systems, multiple political and legal systems and a large variety of languages and cultures.

In foreign countries, there are the possibility of:

local languages required in many situations
very diverse cultures, both between countries and sometimes even within countries
often volatile politics
varied economic systems
scarcity of skilled labor, in which case you would be talking about training or redesigning methods
poorly-developed financial markets and government-controlled capital flows, in some of the countries
problems and exorbitant costs in obtaining market research data
limited advertising, subjected to lots of restrictions
possible low literacy rates, not to mention the possibility of making mistakes in the language when advertising
currency exchange fluctuations
inadequate or limited communication
mandatory worker participation in management in some countries
legal restrictions on laying off of workers.