Effect of International Operations on Marketing

When a company ceases to do business in only one country and expands its operations to multiple nations, the effect is felt throughout the organization. Accounting, finance, production, human resources and marketing are all affected by the shift to a global perspective. It can be argued, however, that marketing is the area of the company that is most affected. The marketing mix, composed of four key components, is directly affected by a company's decision to become an international organization, and these four components, in turn, affect the rest of the organization. This research considers the effect of an international strategy on the marketing function, and how a company's strategy might shift due to a global orientation.

The marketing mix is composed of four components: product, distribution (place), promotion and price (Evans & Berman, 1995). Product refers to the specific product or service that is being offered for sale, and is the foundation for the remainder of the marketing decisions. Even within a particular product category, decisions must be made about the exact characteristics that a product will have, and whether the company will market variations on its primary product. For example, companies that sell salsa must decide not only on the basic recipe for the salsa, but whether the salsa will be available in both mild and "hot" varieties (or whether additional

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gulations about what can and cannot be advertised affects their promotional strategies. These variables can shift for every country, so the company's operations are affected by the number of countries, cultures and regulations with which the company must interact ("Germany Embraces" S5). Of course, other functions within an organization are also affected by external forces in international markets. Currency fluctuations affect the finance department, government regulations and requirements affect the accounting department, and manufacturing operations are affected by the availability of raw materials and a skilled workforce. However, the affect on marketing is so vast and so pervasive, and flows to so many other areas of the company's operationsùthat it can be said that marketing is the area of a company's operation that is most affected by international operations. PRODUCT AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS As companies move into the global market, they must carefully consider whether their product will need to be modified in order to meet the needs and tastes of consumers in different countries. In some cases, the name of the product will need to be changed because of unintended meanings in different languages when direct translat
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Approximate Word count = 2032
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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