Taking a business global has never been easier than in this modern, digital economy. International business management — maintaining your standards and brand across multiple branches — now that’s another story!
It’s easy to appeal to and accommodate a global clientele. But when you have multiple branches across the world, ensuring that every customer has the kind of experience that you would expect from your business is no easy feat. That’s why multi-national businesses are under constant pressure. They need to maintain a global presence, stay on par with local markets, and ensure brand recognition around the world.
Thankfully, making use of the right technology can simplify the process of international business management. It can see you ensuring that your teams and branches around the world are using the infrastructure and apps that have an impact on your business.
What is a Global Rollout Strategy?
When your business is thriving, it’s natural to want to extend your success to other markets and areas. You want to open new branches and have them operate effectively and efficiently. But you also want them to maintain their autonomy and appealing to a local audience. It’s a constant juggle between controlling your brand, and giving your international teams the tools and trust that they need to succeed. A Global Rollout strategy is a plan that helps you navigate the difficult first steps of international business management. It will see you finding the right balance for each of your branches.
What Key Areas Need to Be Navigated with a Global Rollout?
Every business is different and will have its own unique needs. But there are a few scenarios that always need to be considered when planning your global rollout:
What kind of rollout do you want?
When your business is ready to expand across multiple countries, there are two ways that you can go about it.
Sequentially or
All at Once. Each method has its own advantages and drawbacks in terms of financial investment, time to launch, adaptability and availability. Choosing the right method for your international business management will be key to your success.
- Let your first branch be your best
When entering a global market, you’ll want to have a good example to go by for replicating your success. This is why it’s so important that your flagship branch runs exactly the way that you want it to. It needs to set the perfect example for each of your branches around the world. Being able to pinpoint the technologies, strategies and processes that saw your first business succeed will make it far easier to ensure a successful rollout. It’ll also see you being confident in your global success.
To use a popular South African saying, “Local is lekker”, or ‘good’. Every branch that you open will need to appeal to a local audience. Leaving room in your global rollout strategy for localisation will help with successful adaption and adoption of your international business management style.
It’s natural to want your business to succeed, and taking your company global is a big step towards success. But the financial investment can often see businesses putting almost impossible expectations on their new global branches. It’s important to be practical in the goals you hope to achieve, particularly in the starting stages. Setting them out as part of your global rollout strategy will ensure reasonable expectations and transparency.
Communication is important in any business, ensuring that your teams are on the same page and promoting company culture. But when it comes to international business management, communication is essential to success. The process involves so many boundaries, both physical and constructed. Maintaining strong communication between local and international teams can mean the difference between your business excelling and falling flat.
When you have multiple teams working on a wide variety of projects, it can be easy for bottlenecks to form, or for information to get lost. That is why it’s essential for businesses to create well-defined channels for communication and escalation as part of their global rollout strategies. This will ensure that projects flow seamlessly and any issues that may come up are addressed quickly and efficiently.
- Give your people the information they need
Have a centralised hub for data and documents. This will mean that all of your teams will have access to the right information at the right time. This will boost both efficiency and productivity, and make for seamless communication and collaboration between your different operations.
Once you’ve successfully seen your business rolling out across the globe, you may immediately want to breathe a sigh of relief. You may think that the worst is over, so to speak. But post-rollout processes are just as important for the success of your international business management. The initial stages may seem like they are the most critical to your success. But once your global enterprise has been established, maintaining excellent experiences, business continuity and optimal productivity will see your business not just succeed, but excel.
Where do you start?
Omnitell Tech’s Global Rollout strategies form part of our Technology Advisory. They’re are all about making sure that each branch of your business operates successfully, regardless of where they may be located. To make this a reality, we work with you to develop a strategy that will see your business using the right technologies, implementing them across your organisation, and building a global foundation for success.
Contact us today to find out how putting an OTT Global Rollout strategy in place will see your business expanding and excelling.
