International Marketing and Government Export Promotion in the Netherlands

Summary

This chapter deals with the strengths and weaknesses of the Netherlands’ public export promotion and assistance efforts. According to several surveys the respondents’ expectations often exceeded what the government had to offer.

It is argued that the below-average evaluation of services by the public export promotion and assistance agencies is, in part, due to their lack of theoretical and managerial knowledge of international business in general, and international marketing in particular. To fill this void, we propose a closer interaction between public export promotion and assistance agencies, private industry, and academia. Rather than simply providing a window for passing information, the agencies must begin to think and act more like managers and consultants who can offer assistance over the entire exporting process.

The current preparations for a newly integrated European market after 1992 has put the activities of individual government export promotion agencies in a different perspective. However, the agencies will not necessarily become redundant with respect to their E.E.C. activities. Instead , their efforts must then concentrate more on aiding companies to find (or sredefine) their market positions within a new Europe.