The potential for success or failure – always present in business – is heightened by the variable risks and opportunities of a changing market. Businesses that thrive do so because they continue to assess the pros and cons of every change, then research and quantify the market data accordingly, rather than assuming that what once worked will work again. The principle of ongoing evolution shapes market conditions and should also inform the decisions of business leaders seeking to expand operations amid those ever-shifting tides.
When walking our clients through an international rollout assessment, Kettering has found that a few key in-market considerations consistently rise to the top in helping businesses achieve maximum leverage of deployment. This article is the fourth in a series focusing on these challenges and opportunities for tech companies expanding to the U.S. market. With a bit of guidance, your business can better navigate these considerations, especially when coupled with Kettering’s unique positioning and sound support.
Key Point #1: Understand How Tech Firms Can Find Success in the Crowded U.S. Market
The technology sector in the U.S. is significantly more crowded than other, smaller marketplaces. Many expanding tech firms are used to enjoying first-mover or first-follower advantage in their home countries, which might not translate in the enormous yet saturated U.S. market. Australia has only five major cities and a population of about 25 million — a much smaller pool compared to the U.S.’s nearly 332 million. It can be difficult to truly grasp how that size simultaneously expands opportunity and creates a crowded environment unless you have experienced the nuance firsthand.
At Kettering, we educate our clients to take on a fresh perspective and not err on the side of assumption. It is helpful to have vetted information on where cross-sections are most suited for growth and organically overlap with your market advantage. Clients who can reframe their mindset and create new tactics and strategies for specific market expansion will meet viable opportunities and capture the growth opportunities embedded in the U.S. business landscape.
Key Point #2: Understand Who Your Client’s Client Is
In home market forecasting, strategy meetings may only focus on your desired client base, because there is an understanding of the local business ecosystem. However, to understand the U.S. environment and the symbiotic relationship between business verticals, it is advantageous to investigate who it is that your client serves. Think of it as reverse engineering, so you can more fully understand the nuances of the U.S. market landscape. You can begin with market research online, yet the differential is having on-the-ground experience for context and successful execution.
That’s why Kettering walks clients through important markers like:
- Learning the geographic areas of the U.S., which vary greatly in composition and culture.
- Understanding sub stratums of geographical culture which businesses are expected to abide by and honor.
- Learning buyer affiliations and buyer personas throughout the U.S. industry sectors to communicate effectively in networking, negotiating, and sales planning.
An acute awareness of your client’s clients will help you to build a genuine understanding of the business vertical and geographical terrain that is inherent in home base operations. Often, it takes intimate knowledge and in-market understanding – the kind Kettering offers thanks to their established network – to internalize the diverse unspoken realities that comprise the U.S. market.
Key Point #3: Understand the Art of U.S. Business Conversations
Each business sits on a spectrum of competency-based and relationship-based conversational norms, ways of cultural interaction, and expectation. For example, one person on a team may be more attuned to the mechanics of a contract, whereas another employee is leaning into the personal dynamics that will make the team run — both are needed. Teams have this diversity. Individual companies have an ethos that falls somewhere along this spectrum, too, as do geographies. European executives are more likely to be competency-based and purely tech-specific, while American executives are more likely to be relationship-based. To effectively enter a U.S. market takes the art of conversation, so your value can be heard and your team can be easily incorporated.
How Does Kettering Successfully Position Companies Within Client Context?
Kettering helps prepare business leaders, on a case-by-case basis, to meet U.S. executives with a common language so each meeting can be a success in clarity and not squandered by confusion. We have even gone as far as to suggest which team members should lead meetings based on their personalities and areas of expertise. Aligning personalities amplifies your favor, spotlighting your business expertise through common purpose and understanding. With all of the opportunity in the U.S. market, it is still interpersonal relationships that allow businesses to succeed and not get lost in the crowd.
Kettering provides this experiential vision and know-how. Desk research about a market is incomplete without on-the-ground knowledge. By exploring and expanding a business’s possible positioning — both in strategy and network connections — Kettering sets up our clients for sustainable, long-term success.
Contact Kettering Today
Call Kettering International for more insight into the benefits of U.S. market entry and how your business will profit from researching these key components for your international market launch. And stay tuned for our next article, which will explore the current opportunities that await tech firms considering U.S. market entry.