Taking your business international can be daunting, and there are many pros and cons to consider when taking the big step to grow your business on the world stage. Not only are there financial considerations to make, but personal ones too. What about your family? What about your employees? Do I understand how foreign markets and industries work? These are all questions that will be on your mind as you attempt to set sail into international waters with your business. Here’s just a few of the pros and cons to help make your decision easier.
Pros of taking your business International
There’s no doubt that establishing your business internationally has many pros associated with it. But, it’s whether you’re willing to take the leap and wrestle with the increased responsibility and pressures that you will encounter that will determine how successful you are.
The first positive of taking your business international is the access you will have to a global customer base filled with growing foreign markets and different industries. No longer will you be stuck to your national customer base – and the revenues that can be generated internationally will obviously be much greater than if you operated solely within the UK.
The second positive of branching out into international waters is the global recognition that can come on the back of establishing yourself as an international brand. The exposure that international business will bring to your brand will enable you to become a trusted name within your industry, as well as household, name depending on the nature of your business. This will all help in the generation of revenue streams in the future.
Make the most of making calls internationally to different countries and gain insights into foreign business methods where you can learn and take advice that perhaps you hadn’t considered previously. International business will provide you with a worldview and new perspective that you wouldn’t necessarily possess within a national business.
Cons of taking your business international
As we mentioned earlier in the article, taking your business international comes with many revenue positives, albeit an increased sense of responsibility and pressure. The increased customer base will mean you’re responsible for greater volumes of product, plus numbers of employees and clients, meaning the risk associated with failure is much greater.
Taking the leap into international markets can prove difficult for new businesses though, as they attempt to bridge the culture gap between their new clients. There may be changes in the way your industry operates in other countries or in the way your foreign clients operate. Secondly, the language barrier that can bring about communication issues that can often take time to overcome.
Now we’ve established the potential communication barriers we may stumble on, we should also look at the personal effects that international business can have on your life. With international business comes different time zones and long periods spent travelling away from home. This can cause stresses within your family and relationships as your increased pressures mean you can’t spend as much quality time with them as you once did. Additionally, moving your family abroad for business doesn’t always provide the idyllic scenario that we all hope for. Homesickness and cultural differences can become an issue.
There are many different pros and cons to consider when growing your business on an international scale and we’ve only just began to scratch the surface.
