Choose the right criteria

- Now that you know what information you need to assemble and analyze for your foreign expansion, in this chapter, you're going to assess your company's current offerings and choose which ones qualify for your investment of time, attention, and money. So let's get started looking at criteria that should drive your decisions. First, your current offerings, which we'll call value propositions. You should be using the information you've analyzed to answer two key questions. What value does your company deliver to your international customer in your target country and which specific needs are you satisfying for that customer in that target country? Next, you'll need to choose key partners, either at home or in that foreign market. So the decisions you'll need to make are identifying who those partners and suppliers should be, as well as defining their what's in it for me so you know why they'd be interested in being part of your ecosystem. The next part of your assessment is whether you can configure the best combination of customer relationships and segments for your international expansion for customers. It's about determining the relationship your target customers expect you to build with them and how you integrate those demands and related costs into your business plan. Don't forget that all customers are not created equal so you'll need to choose which international customer groups value your offerings and within these groups which are the most important ones to focus on. Now, pause this video and write a list of which offerings you'd launch in that international marketplace and which customer groups you'd target that bring your company the most revenue and profits. At this point, you've narrowed your focus and are clearer on which offerings, which partners, and which customers are in the mix. This means you are in a position to calculate the costs and revenues to serve these foreign customers or clients. To do this, you'll need to know which are your biggest cost elements, such as raw materials, and the key activities that are the most expensive, such as customer service. Your revenues will come from the value defined by your customers and for which they're willing to pay. Your research and data analysis will tell you what they buy and how much they're prepared to pay for the value they expect. Plus, you'll know how they like to pay, which includes credit terms. Your revenue calculations will also require you to include the absolute amount or percentage that each revenue stream contributes to the total. So you can understand any resource implications of that mix of incomes. All these inputs now give you a view of what resources you'll need and which channels will work best to reach those international customer segments. So for each value proposition, you know delivers revenue in that foreign territory, you should list the key resources, each offering requires for its distribution channels, customer relationships and revenue streams. How you physically serve these foreign customers is the next consideration. For this, you'll need to know which combination of channels matches best in terms of how your customers want to be reached and the costs for developing each one.