For Further Research (Groups) Assume you are part of a small business in the United States that manufactures portable gas barbecue grills and has decided to enter the global marketplace. What type of market entry strategy would be best suited for your company and why? What decisions should the company make around product, price, place, and promotion to ensure success?

Concepts: Apply Marketing Metrics Many Western firms see their futures in the growing populations of developing countries, where 8 out of 10 consumers now live. Consumers from the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—offer new opportunities for firms because growing numbers are accumulating significant amounts of disposable income. These new consumers are creating big business opportunities for companies that are innovative enough to serve them. Success requires companies to develop a set of key capabilities, including:

• Customer insight: An understanding of local customers and their unique needs is essential.

• People and culture: Culture trumps brand. Companies that don’t possess an iconic brand need to adopt a culture of being willing to tailor products to customers’ needs rather than attempting to market products from Canada in emerging markets.

• Research and development: Companies must strike a careful balance between local relevance and global scale, paying careful attention to how innovations developed with one set of customers in mind can be reapplied elsewhere.

• Operations and business model: Companies must consider how to tailor their pricing structure or business model when developing products and services aimed at this new emerging

“spend” class.53 But how do firms measure their success in these developing markets? Firms in developed countries normally use standard marketing metrics, such as customer awareness, customer satisfaction, increases in market share or profits, return on customer investment, or return on marketing investment. But these metrics are based on standard market-entry strategies with full-size products and correspondingly typical pricing and promotional strategies—very different from the approach just described. Hence, these metrics are likely not too useful for the new markets in the developing world, where many millions of people buy streamlined versions of a firm’s products at a fraction of their usual price.