Acme Corporation's international business plan to export manual razors to Canada

¶ … international business plan. The plan will be for Acme Corporation. The plan will be to export manual razors (non-electric) from Acme's home country of the United States to Canada. The next section, that being the executive summary, will list the different sections of this report and in the order they will be listed.

There will be numerous sections of this report. They will include an introduction, a situation analysis, an export marketing plan, several market screenings, export marketing strategies, the export financial plan and the export performance evaluation. The author of this report would flesh out the "market screenings" as there are a total of five of those. The first screening will be the basic need potential. The second screening will be financial and economic forces. The third screening will be political and legal forces. The fourth screening will be sociocultural forces. The fifth and final screening will be competitive forces.

Introduction

Acme Corporation has a solid business base within the United States and it continues to grow in a health and steady fashion. However, the authors wish to expand into new countries and the two closest ones would be Mexico and Canada. While they are both immediately bordering the United States, Canada's economy is more advanced and more similar to the United States. As such, there will be exports to that country first. Mexico could be a target for future years and expansions. However, Canada would require less mobilization of resources

Situation Analysis

Firm & Product Description

As noted earlier, the name of the company in question is Acme Corporation. Acme has been around since the early 1990's and has presented itself as an alternative to the other manual razor companies. The identified reason for the alternative is that the razor giants like Gillette and Schick (among others) charge quite a bit of money for their razor refills with little to no reason. Acme joins several other upstart companies as they present a more cost-effective alternative to disposable razors.

Company Resources to be Used

The company will be using much of the same resources for the export as will be used for the domestic product. All of the product will continue to be made in the United States. However, Acme will now be exporting some of the finished product to Canadian distributors. This will be done by semi-truck and shipping via UPS/FedEx.

Competitive Situation in the Industry

As noted before, there are two "camps" in the disposable razor market. There are the larger companies that charge a lot for their refills and then there are those that profess the same (or better) quality at a fraction of the price. Market coverage is pretty much all over the developed world as everyone buys a razor of some sort. The key is to get people to switch. Acme has a relatively small market share but intends to expand that market share greatly.

Export Organization

Acme will not need a lot of "boots on the ground" in Canada. Indeed, they will sell online to people in Canada and to distributors that are willing to sell from there. A few salespeople will be in Canada and perhaps a few operations people but that is about it.

Export Marketing Plan

Long-Term & Short-Term Goals

The long-term goal is to get an established customer base in Canada. In the short-term, the objective will be to get Acme's name in the marketplace and get the selling process started. Total sales in units over the first year is desired to be about 10,000 units. Since our average price point is $2.50 USD, that would $25,000. There will be several different product lines. There will be standard and sensitive skin razors for both men and women but the bulk of the customers will probably be men so the men's razor will be the first product sold. Market share will not be terribly big at the onset. However, Acme hopes to get loyal customers through online sales rather than having to spend money on huge ad campaigns. The endeavor into Canada will be a loss at first but the break-even should happen within a few years…if that. This is because the additional investment into Canada will not be terribly high due to the online nature of the sales.

Target Market Characteristics

The Gross National Product of Canada is 1,952,356. Their GDP is 1.825 billion. Their DGP per capita is 37,519.66. The country's economy is mostly flat in terms of growth right now (Trading Economics, 2015). The overall population of Canada is 35.16 million…about ten percent of that of the United States.

Identify, Assess & Select Target Markets

Government Contacts

The Acme Corporation will establish the proper contact with the agencies in the United States that are associated with export of goods. These would include the United States Department of Commerce, the World Trade Center, the standard Chamber of Commerce, Acme's bank, the State's export assistance program, the Small Business Administration, the Small Business Development Center at the local university and the Export Hotline Directory (Ball et al., 2013).

Export Marketing Strategies

The initial products that will be exported are the men's standard and sensitive skin razors. The women's products will be added later. The pricing will be positioned similarly to what is done in the United States as it will be in the same realm as the other good budget razors but less than the razor giants. Channels of distribution will be sites like Canada's Amazon site and other giants. Their customer review program could be a boon for Acme because Acme is very confident about its razors and the customer reviews could help build the product base. Promotion methods will include through Facebook, Twitter and other social media avenues (Null, 2013). As noted above, sales should be about 10,000 units in the first year because Acme does plan to be aggressive. It should go up from there.

Export Performance Evaluation

Evaluations of performance of the markets, product lines and the people doing the export work will be done on a monthly basis in-depth and weekly at a high level. Variables that will be measured will include total units sold, how they were sold, cost of goods sold, the overall profit of the different product lines, the market share that Acme has (although that will start and remain low for a while), the efforts of competitors (mostly the very similar ones) and actual results compared to budgeted results.

Conclusion

Acme will indeed be a very small fish in a very big pond. However, it is possible to make an entry into the Canadian market without spending a ton of time and money. As such, Acme feels confident that the market can be entered quickly and a profit gained within a few years.