Understanding the Environment
Feb 6th, 2012 by Andy Mao
After reading Kevin (Kun Hao) Wang’s blog on Abercrombie and Fitch’s expansion in Japan, I realized that the contents we learned in class are actually applicable in the real world. For instance, in class we learned firms need to segment the market into different bases and variables to fully understand the needs and wants of the consumers. In this example, Abercrombie and Fitch hired staff who spoke English and built their retail stores with the same amount of sexual contents as the ones in North America. It was obvious that Abercrombie and Fitch disregarded the fact that Japan has its own culture and language. Japanese consumers had no intention to walk in an American-based retail store and speak in a foreign language. Instead the company should have spent more time hiring and training Japanese staff to learn about their company policy and to serve in their local language. Also it should have made necessary changes in their product line and their retail store to fit into the Japanese culture.
This example taught me that, if a company wants to succeed in expanding at a foreign country, it should spend the time to analyse the market and adjust their promotion to the different culture, language of the country.
Original post by Kevin (Kun Hao) Wang https://blogs.ubc.ca/kunhaowang/
So true, companies really need to take aspects of the macro environment into consideration when thinking of expansion!