AN OVERVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSInternational Business is concerned with firm’s overseas operations with respect tomanagerial activities involved in the sourcing of materials and intermediate products,the manufacture and supply of goods or services and the distribution and marketing ofthese products to international consumers and customers.The internationalization of its operations provide a firm with an opportunity to expandits sales and profits and to establish and maintain competitive advantage.This is important when the domestic market is small, or where domestic sales havereached maturity, or are declining.Horizontal global expansion can be an alternative to domestic expansion in sustainingfirm growth.Business StrategyFor many companies, globalization of their operations plays an important part in theformulation of their overall business strategy.Business strategy is concerned with the formulation of long-term plans by a company toachieve its corporate mission or business objectives.Functional dimensions: economic, organizational, behavioral, production, marketing,and finance.Business strategy is inevitably holistic in approach and seeks to integrate functionalactivities in order to develop appropriate policies.Two critical areas of corporate decision makingStrategic decision– decide on what products to supply (thus determining the industriesin which it operates) and the geographical spread of its operations (local or regionalwithin a particular country, nationwide, international or global).Competitive strategy– no matter how few or many product and geographic markets thecompany chooses to be in, its corporate prosperity will depend fundamentally on howwell it succeeds in the individual product and geographic markets making up itsbusiness.Strategic DecisionIt can seek to achieve a greater penetration of itsexistingmarket, increasing its share.Developnew marketsfor its existing products, capitalizing of the company’s productionexpertise.Seek to developnew productsfor its existing markets, exploiting the company’smarketing strengths.The company can aim to diversify away from its existing activity by developingnewproducts for new markets.
