Global Marketing: An Analysis of IKEA and Ashley Furniture Industries’ Marketing Activities

3003 Words 13 Pages
For most ambitious companies in today's complex business environment, gaining competitive advantage and achieving expansion in capacity often requires internationalising operations and entering new markets with the goal of building a broader and more diversified customer base. However, internationalisation typically presents the problem of how to establish the company’s business or brand in a foreign market, considering the cultural and contextual differences in global markets (De Mooij, 1998). Due to the spread of globalisation and the convergence of markets and economies, it has been increasingly acknowledged that a broad range of products and services can potentially have a global appeal and generate considerable revenues across the …show more content…
In spite of the relative strengths that IKEA have accumulated with its long history of international retail business, it is widely argued that internationalization of retailers is a decidedly challenging and complex proposition. This is because, in contrast with, for instance, manufacturing, international retailers often do not have the benefit of using a traditional export strategy because they need to develop and manage several stores located in their new markets (Dawson, 1994). For IKEA therefore, it was imperative to devise knowledgeable strategies that would not only ensure efficient development and management of its stores in Russia, but also effective marketing activities that would give it competitive advantage in the tough Russian market. Consequently, the company found it necessary to adapt its promotion and communication strategies for Russia in order to present its product range to the Russian public in a manner that paid due attention to local characteristics and cultural realities of the market. However, this requires a strategic balance in line with the interactive approach to global marketing suggested by Gillespie (2004) that companies operating in foreign markets need to determine how best to maintain their

Related Documents