Why American companies seem to resist "going global"

Why do American companies seem to resist "going global", even though 92% of American CEOs admit that their top priority now is "going global".

I've been bringing IT companies to Europe since 1980, and it's just astounding how few small or medium companies are interested in foreign markets. Or else, they say they're interested, and don't have any budget for international marketing. In the last two years, I've had conversations with some top international marketing consultants about the IT industry and we agree that the IT industry is behind other industries in terms of awareness about international marketing. It's strange that this should be so, since their normal marketing budgets are so high. But the perception there is that "the world speaks English. Let them come to us."

It is hard to understand a company that when they tell you that they are not interested in international sales because they cannot even keep up with the demand in domestic U.S. orders. The general attitude is they consider non-US sales "gravy" and are not interested (at least at that point in time) in giving any attention to develop overseas markets.

A bit of personal experience here. In the early '90s, I served as Director for Business Development for the City Of Paris, to attract European headquarters for US companies to the Greater Paris area. I must have called 3000 companies during two years, and heard most everything. Basically, the upshot was that US companies did not care about expanding to international markets more than what was happening without making any effort.

There are two basic factors that I've come up with, after these decades of trying to convince American companies to "go global":

1. The sheer size of the domestic U.S. market is so large as to blind them to the rest of the world, and make anything international seem as far away as Mars. Let me give a comparison. Whenever I look for international magazines in big American cities such as San Francisco or Dallas, it is extremely difficult to find them anywhere. I live in a small town of 100,000 people in France, and there must be 5 newstands that sell newspapers and magazines from 10-15 countries. The reason must be that since France has a small local population (60 M), they are more internationally minded. I've come to the conclusion that it is easier to attract European clients than American ones, because Europeans have been internationally minded in business for centuries. It's in their blood. American companies (outside of the Fortune 500 companies) have had very little reason to look outside their own borders for sales growth, until a decade or two ago.
   
   
2. The English language. I am constantly astounded how much I hear American businesspeople state, with full assurance, that they do not need to market their product/service in any other language, since "everybody speaks English these days". This myopia could be cured very quickly by a trip abroad, when they would have to talk to regular people (not their business colleagues), and find to their astonishment that most Europeans do not remember much of their high school English. Even in Stockholm, I've asked people for directions in the street, and they reply back in Swedish that they don't understand English. Or when I called the city tax office in Amsterdam for my company (registered in Amsterdam), but they only spoke Dutch (and expected me to speak Dutch): no English.

The real issue, of course, is not that people in other countries don't speak English. The real issue is a marketing issue.

"Marketing always takes place in the language of the target market."

Never in English. (An occasional exception, such as magazine advertisements for American jeans/clothing.) I defy anyone to go to even countries where everyone is supposed to be able to speak English (such as Sweden, Holland, Germany), and find any marketing copy in English. Whether it's TV/radio commercials, newspaper/magazine ads, posters in the street, etc. -- the ads are always in the language of the country. The Web is all about marketing and grabbing people's attention: why should it be any different?

Web business is "pull marketing" par excellence. Marketing stood on its head. Instead of someone going out and actively selling something to someone, pull marketing attracts people to a Website, when they are looking for a particular item. Attracting people's attention, when they are in the browsing/buying mood. This obviously has to be done in their own language. Make your Website such that its gravitational field pulls in people who are interested in its subject... and the can quickly read it in their own language. That is the key to today's shift in marketing.

Written by Bill Dunlap (Managing Director)
Global Reach
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Written by Bill Dunlap
Managing Director, Global Reach

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Last revised on 16 Sept., 1999
URL: glreach.com/eng/ed/art/rep-eur16.html