Management Objectives
- What are the company’s reasons for pursuing export markets?
- How committed is top management to an export effort?
- If domestic sales pick up, how will this effect the company’s export customers?
- What are management’s expectations for the export effort?
- How quickly does management expect export operations to become self-sustaining?
- What level of return on investment is expected from the export program?
Experience
- With what countries has business already been conducted, or from what countries have inquiries already been received?
- Are any domestic customers buying the product to sell or export abroad? If so, to which countries?
- Is the trend of sales and inquiries up or down?
- Who are the main domestic and foreign competitors?
- What general and specific lessons have been learned from past export attempts or experiences?
Production Capacity
- How is your present capacity being used?
- Will filling export orders hurt domestic sales?
- What will be the cost of additional production? Will your fixed costs remain the same?
- Are there fluctuations in the annual workload? When? Why?
- What minimum-order quantity is required?
- What would be required to design and package products specifically for export?
Financial Capacity
- What amount of capital can be committed to export production and marketing?
- How are the initial expenses of export efforts to be allocated?
- What other new development plans are in the works that may compete with export plans?
- By what date must an export effort pay for itself?
1. Which products are selected for export development, and what changes, if any, must be made to adapt them for overseas markets?
2. Which countries are targeted for sales development?
3. In each country, what is the basic customer profile,and what marketing and distribution channels should be used to reach customers?
4. What special challenges pertain to each market (such as, competition, cultural differences, and import controls), and what strategy will be used to address them?
5. How will the product’s export sales price be determined?
6. What specific operational steps must be taken and when?
7. What will be the time frame for implementing each element of the plan?
8. What staff and company resources will be dedicated to exporting?
9. What will be the cost in time and money for each element?
10. How will results be evaluated and used to change the plan?