International Entry: Assessing International Markets Using a Quantitative Approach

Abstract

One of the strategic management concepts related to corporate strategy is international strategy. In the global era, firms generally strive for serving international markets. However, succeeding in foreign markets is not easy because countries vary with regard to political, economic, legal, and cultural systems. Understanding these various systems and adapting to them are not an easy task for firms. Espeed, a fictious American electric vehicle (EV) producer, would like to enter the market in other countries, and so is faced with understanding these varying systems. As a corporate-level strategy, expanding into international markets is a high-stakes decision that has tremendous consequences for the firm. As a result, Espeed has to carefully investigate characteristics of the macroenvironments and potential EV customers in the emerging markets. This Data Challenge provides a business scenario in which Dana Chen, the head of the market research team at Espeed, utilizes the data in order to evaluate which emerging economies the firm should enter and what factors are likely to affect the potential EV markets in these areas. Working on this Data Challenge can help students develop the following competencies and skills: recognizing the role of data in assisting firms’ decision-making process; developing knowledge of using some basic statistical tools to analyze data; justifying the data quality to avoid misleading decision makers; and converting and synthesizing the information and insights from data into a final report that meets industry standards. To effectively complete this Data Challenge, students should have some knowledge of strategic management and some basic knowledge of quantitative analysis including descriptive statistics and linear regressions.

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