Appendices to CBI Export Planner - crecer

CBI Export PlannerIIThe exporting companyPreparations for export begin with assessing whether your company is strong enough tosucceed - or simply to survive in the battle with the competition abroad. After all, yourcompany holds all the resources that you have analysed in the previous chapter.In Chapter II the CBI Export Planner guides you on your inspection tour through yourown company, highlighting the assets which are valuable for international trade, warningfor the liabilities which would stand in your way.Two methods for analysis are shown, a general one and one which covers exportingrequirements specifically.Staying inside your company, the chapter then focuses on your marketing ‘toolkit’, themarketing mix. Since your intentions to do business abroad will affect the mix itself aswell as the way how you will use it, this is covered extensively.1. Total Quality Management for all businessesYour first and foremost question as the company’s manager will always be: how goodshould we be in order to participate in international business?The answer is, without much exaggeration: your company should be the best in thebusiness. Since international trade has been expanding spectacularly, spurred by thetechnological possibilities of the ICT New Economy, many commercial barriers tend tofade away. Competition becomes international too. Multinationals expand strongly, newconcerns of limitless power are being created, barely contained by legislation (as theMicrosoft-case showed). Only the best companies have a chance to survive in thecontinuous battle for market share and profits.‘The best’ company is not just an indication. It is a well-defined concept, measurable byits assets. The definition comes from the notion that any manufacturer, who does hisutmost to produce goods and services to make his customers happy, is capable to adhereto Total Quality Management. TQM has thereby become the criterion that anyorganisation can be benchmarked by.18 II - The exporting company