Introduction

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CAN INVOLVE opening a new market to sell into, or finding new vendors who can supply you with goods or services you need for your home market, or a mix of those activities. So you might actually do both, acting as buyer and seller abroad. Depending on where you are in the life of your business, the nature of your business and your business model, international business may represent a new phase, or it could be part of your initial start-up model.

Here are some scenarios:

• You think your goods or services will sell well in the target market, so you need to set up means to enter that market.

• Your current local vendors or human resources (employees, freelancers, etc.) may not be the best for your company’s optimal success. They might be overloaded, expensive, too slow, lacking technical expertise or equipment, poorly located, or have other limitations that can be avoided or minimized by moving their functions abroad.

• The target market is pro-actively seeking inward investment and is offering incentives (tax relief, start-up assistance, etc.) to make it attractive for your business.

Regardless of where you find yourself today, we invite you to scale our advice to fit your picture. Your established, growing business might be best served by outside consultants and professionals who can dig up the data you need to make smart choices. Or your shoestring, ambitious little home-based company might really be better off if you get on a train or plane and do most of the groundwork yourself. Our aim is to make you aware of the things you’ll need to consider in any case.

We decided early on that our book would not be a country-by-country guide for entrepreneurs eager to expand across borders. If you need that kind of information, you’ll find it in print, online, at conferences and expos, and in chance conversations or planned meetings. Be alert to bias, out-of-date data (things are changing very fast in the developing economies), current events and so forth. Sniff out any flaws in the information you collect and weigh it carefully as you plan.

We authors are all American born and a lot of our business experience, both as employees working in international companies and as entrepreneurs developing global business, has had ties to the US. However, we’ve also lived and worked in a number of countries, made deals and created companies all over the world. So we wrote this book without reference to any particular home country or target country, to leave you the room to fill in those details yourself.

One of the greatest appeals of international business is seeing how much people can be different and yet the same, the world over. The stark contrasts, subtle nuances, moments of high comedy and drama, and of course the hope for success make it a very exciting aspect of an entrepreneur’s life. So let’s get started!