Plan your expansion with the Internationalization Canvas

We will help you develop your international expansion strategy by creating an internationalization canvas of your business.

After filling this document, you will be able to analyze the most important topics of your expansion and implement the next steps towards your next market.

‍

I. Filling the canvas

This canvas was specially developed to help your company create its internationalization strategy.

To fill this canvas, you and your team will need to think and discuss the most important points of your international expansion. Therefore, after completing this document, you will have a clear overview of what you need to do in order to access new markets and grow global!

1. Internationalization goal

Why are we going international?

In the first block, you will identify what is the main reason that motivates your company to access new markets. For example:

– Increase our number of customers
– Find a country with better regulations in our industry
– Decrease our development costs
– etc.

2. Results (KPI’s)

How will you measure your internationalization performance?

Now that you’ve specified what your goal and your vision are, you need to identify how to measure the success of your international expansion. What indicators will you use for this and what numbers do you intend to achieve? US$ 10k in sales in the first year? 3 new members in your team in 6 months?

Remember, a good KPI should always always be SMART:

(S) Specific: profit | number of new employees;
(M) Measurable: measured by accessible numbers;
(A) Achievable: something your company can actually achieve;
(R) Relevant: Of course, this KPI needs to be of high interest to your company;
(T) Timed: for one year, for example.

3. Resources

What resources are available for your internationalization?

Yes, we have also covered a bit about resources while responding to the internationalization test. Here, we want you to reflect on what are the key things you can invest during your internationalization. This can include:

• Financial investment (how much money can you invest?)
• Human Resources (people / hours per week)
• Governmental instruments (is there any government assistance you can take advantage of?)
• Existing partnerships and channels (people in your industry, international clients, etc.)

4. Limitations

What factors restrict your internationalization?

It is almost impossible to have a perfect scenario in relation to internationalization – there will always be some limitations and difficulties along the way. With that in mind, it is extremely important to predict what are the factors that can slow your expansion down and start thinking about possible solutions to it.

Therefore, we would like you to list all factors, both internal and external, that may limit your international performance, such as:

• Resources (technical and financial)
• Deadlines
• Lack of international experience within the team
• Complex regulations within your niche
• Other existing projects

‍

II. Choosing your next market

5a. Criteria to select a target market

What are the criteria for selecting the target country?

You have also seen some indications of these requirements in your internationalization profile. In this section, I want you to go deeper within this topic and list the characteristics that your new country should offer.

You can use the topics mentioned earlier as a starting point and add more criteria according to your reality.

5b. Which countries meet these criteria?

Practical activity: search for and identify which countries meet these criteria.

Now that you know what criteria a country should have to be attractive to your company, it’s time to do some research and identify relevant markets for your business.

Here we start the 3rd step of your international expansion: the market selection. We have also written a guide and created specific tools to help you at this stage. You can access it by clicking the button below.

‍

MARKET SELECTION TOOL

‍

III. Market entry

6. Lean strategy

Which one of the 7 lean strategies is the most appropriate for your company?

At uGlobally, we apply the exact same concept of the lean startup for companies who are starting their global expansion. Instead of using traditional processes, which require hours of effort and very reasonable investment, we use lean strategies that enable businesses to enter new markets more efficiently.

‍

CHECK THE SEVEN LEAN STRATEGIES HERE

‍

7. Stakeholders

What are the potential customers and partners in the new country?

Did you identify new stakeholders? List them here. For example:

• Potential partners to resell your product
• Potential networks to tap into
• Etc

8. Value proposition

What do we do very well and how do we intend to apply this in a new market?

The purpose of this section is to make you think about the practical side of your market entry. This is specialy important for those who want to acquire new international customers, once it is fundamental to understand what their advantages are when compared to the local alternatives.

With that in mind, we want you to describe what your main advantages are and how you will apply them in the new market, also considering the strategy and stakeholders you identified before.

9. Cost structure

What are the costs involved with the country and strategy you chose?

Ex:

• Staff
• Marketing
• Office space
• Translation
• Integration of new tools

10. Localization

What changes do you need to make in your current offers to serve the new market?

Ex:

• Creation of a new partnership model
• Integrate existing local tools
• Integrate local payment gateways
• Adapt to local legislations

‍