Marketing in Adversity: the International Dimension

Abstract

The existence of an international dimension to the marketing problems associated with zero growth tilts further the balance of importance between company strategy and the political and economic environment, in favour of the latter. The company is more than ever subjected to the environment: although it has more apparent choices in its marketing strategy it is more affected than ever by external decisions and conditions. It is more likely to have to respond to government initiatives than to initiate: it is dependent on what its own and other governments choose to do and which will change the conditions under which it produces and competes. To put it at its simplest, when a company is devising a marketing strategy solely for a domestic market it can assume that there is a good deal of commonality of interests and problems between its domestic rivals and itself: excessive inflation or deflation, a prosperous or depressed market, government hostility or goodwill to private enterprise — it shares all these conditions with its domestic rivals. The same assumptions cannot be made, however, on the international arena: competing companies may be operating in an entirely different ambience with corresponding advantages and restrictions which are to a large extent the result of government decisions.