DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

BAYERO UNIVERSITY, KANO

M.Sc. MANAGEMENT
MGT 8233: MARKETING MANAGEMENT
SEMESTER, 2021 / 2022 SESSION

Facilitator: Dr. Amina Liman

ASSIGNMENT
Basic Concepts, Principles and Practices Associated with International Marketing

Management.

By

ABUBAKAR UMAR ADAM

SPS/20/MMN/00001

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INTRODUCTION
The global business environment has undergone significant changes in recent years. Each
company, whether it is big or small, operates in a competitive environment and has its own
global competitors (Kretter, 2010). Companies may end up closing down if they pay little
attention to international trade and think the home market is big, safer, and teeming with
opportunities. Their managers do not need to learn other languages, deal with strange and
changing currencies, face political and legal uncertainties, or adapt their products to different
customer needs and expectations.
As global competition intensifies, local companies that never thought about foreign competitors
suddenly find these competitors in their own backyards. The firm that stays home to play it safe
not only misses the opportunity to enter other markets but also risks losing its home market.
This is because technology creates leaps in communication, transportation, and financial flows,
the world continues to feel smaller and the entire globe is one market. Income growth has
triggered the consumers’ desire for more and newer varieties of goods, thereby creating markets
for foreign products. The breakthroughs in information and communication technology and
means of transport have contributed to the convergence in tastes and preferences of the
consumers around the world. Various brands and products that originate in one country are
enthusiastically accepted in others.
Besides consumers, competitors too have become global in there and approach to business and
are ready to experiment and adopt different competitive marketing strategies in various markets
for efficiency gains. All these developments have led to interdependency in international trade
between nations.
What is International Marketing?
Understanding international marketing is easier if you have good knowledge of the concept of
marketing. Literature offers several various definitions of international marketing:
International marketing consists of findings and satisfying global customer needs better than the
competition, both domestic and international and coordinating marketing activities within the
constraints of the global environment (Terpstra, Foley and Sarathy, 2012).
International marketing focuses on the need to create, communicate and deliver value
internationally (Czinkota and Ronkainen, 2012).

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According to American Marketing Association (AMA) marketing definition can be extended to
define international marketing, "marketing is the process of planning and executing the
conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges
that satisfy individual and organizational objectives". Thus, "international marketing is the
multinational process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and
distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and
organizational objectives.
" If you examine this definition of international marketing carefully, you realize that only the
world 'multinational' has been added to the AMA definition of marketing given above, By adding
the word multinational, it implies that marketing activities are undertaken in several countries
and such activities should be coordinated across nations. Thus, international marketing is the
coordinated marketing process undertaken in several countries

2.0 PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL MARKETING

Agrawal, et al., 2014; Keegan & Green, (2013) there are three principles of international
marketing which can be summed up as follows
i. The principle of customer value
ii. The principle of competitive advantage
iii. The principle of concentration of customer need
2.1. The Principle of Customer Value
One of the main principles of international marketing is creating customer value, this value needs
to be greater than the value which is created by the competitors. Customer value means
providing useful products and services that customer consider worthy of their time, energy, and
money (Kotler & Keller, 2016). The value equation is a guide to this task: Value = Benefits/Price
(money, time, effort, etc.)

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The marketing mix is integral to the equation because benefits are a combination of the product,
the promotion, and the distribution. As a general rule, value, as the customer perceives it, can be
increased in two basic ways. Markets can offer customers an improved bundle of benefits or
lower prices (or both). Marketers may strive to improve the product itself, to design new
channels of distribution, to create better communications strategies, or a combination of all three.
Marketers may also seek to increase value by finding ways to cut costs and prices. Nonmonetary
costs are also a factor, and marketers may be able to decrease the time and effort that customers
must expend to learn about or seek out the product.
Companies that use price as a competitive advantage or competitive strategy must have a
strategic cost advantage in order to create a suitable and sustainable competitive advantage in
terms of price. The inputs might come for this strategy in the form of the availability of cheap
labor or access to cheap raw material or it might be in form of economies of scale in production
or in the form of effective or efficient management.
Knowledge of the customer value in combination with creativity and innovation can help a
company make improvements in the products and services which actually matter to the customer.
If these benefits are strong enough and valued enough by the customer a company does not need
to be the low-price competitor in order to win the customers.

2.2 The Principle of Competitive Advantage

The second principle is that of competitive advantage. When a company succeeds in creating
more value for customers than its competitors, that company is said to enjoy competitive
advantage in an industry. Therefore, Competitive advantage is measured relative to rivals in a
given industry. A competitive advantage is a total offer of a company that is in comparison to the
relevant competition. This offer of the company has to be more attractive than the competitor’s
offer to the customers. The advantage could exist in any element of the companies offer for
example it may be in the product or the price or advertising or the point of sale promotion or the
distribution of products to name a few. In any case the total offer must be more attractive than
that of the competition in order to create a competitive advantage.
A company might have a product that is equivalent in quality to that of the competition if not
better but if it offers this product at a significantly lower price and if it can get customers to
believe that the quality of the company’s product is equal to that of the competition the price
advantage will give the company a competitive advantage.

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The competitive advantage must exist relative to relevant competitors. Thus, if the company is in
a local industry these competitors will be local and if it is a national industry, it will have
national competitors and if it is a global company it will have global competitors.
2.3 The Principle of Concentration of Customer Need.
The third principle is the focus on the concentration of customer need. Achieving competitive
advantage in a global industry requires executives and managers to maintain a well-defined
strategic focus. Focus is simply the concentration of attention on a core business or competence.
The focus is required to succeed in the task of creating customer value at a competitive
advantage. All the successful organizations are successful because they understand and apply
this principle. The focus on customer needs and wants and on the competitive offer is needed to
mobilize the efforts required to maintain a differential advantage this can be accomplished only
by focusing on the resources and efforts on customer needs and wants and how to deliver a
product that will meet these needs and wants. For example, Nestlé is focused on food and
beverages
Value, competitive advantage, and the focus required to achieve them are universal in their
relevance, and they should guide marketing efforts in any part of the world. Global marketing
requires attention to these issues on a worldwide basis and utilization of a business intelligence
system capable of monitoring the globe for opportunities and threats.

3.0 INTERNATIONAL MARKETING CONCEPTS

In the context of international marketing, you come across several terms such as domestic
marketing, export marketing, multinational marketing, global marketing, etc., these concepts are
discussed in detail as followed.
3.1 Domestic Marketing: Marketing that is targeted exclusively at the home-country market is
called domestic marketing. A purely domestic company operates only domestically, when it
reaches growth limits, it diversifies into new markets, products and technologies within the
country instead of entering foreign markets,
3.2 Export Marketing: This is the first stage when the firm steps out of the domestic market and
explore market opportunities outside the country. In export marketing, the main aim of the firm
is to expand the market size. Firm produces all its goods in the home country and exports the
surplus production to other countries. It makes full marketing efforts in the domestic country,
but do not undertake any marketing activity in the foreign countries,

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3.3 International Marketing: In international marketing focus changes from just exporting to
marketing in foreign countries. Company establishes subsidiaries in the foreign countries to
undertake marketing operations, these subsidiaries may be working either through direction from
the headquarters in the domestic country or independently, but the key positions in such concerns
are manned by nationals of domestic country.
3.4 Global Marketing
Global marketing refers to carrying out marketing operations from the company’s headquarter
while selling products or services worldwide in different countries.
According to Kotabe and Helsen (2011) the following: Global marketing refers to marketing
activities by companies that emphasize
Standardization efforts – standardizing marketing programs across different countries
particularly with respect to product offering, promotional mix, price and channel structure. Such
efforts increase opportunities for the transfer of products, brands, and other ideas across
subsidiaries and help address the emergence of global customers.
Coordination across markets– reducing cost inefficiencies and duplication of efforts among
their national and regional subsidiaries.
Global integration – participating in many major world markets to gain competitive leverage
and effective integration of the firm´s competitive campaigns across these markets by being able
to subsidize operations in some markets with resources generated in others and responding to
competitive attacks in one market by counterattacking in others (Zou and Cavusgil, 2002).

According to Onkvisit and Shaw, (2004), the terms international, multinational, and global
marketing have no difference and are used interchangeably.
4. Concept Related To Mode of Entry in International Marketing
Once a company decides to target a particular country, it must choose the best mode of entry
with its brands. Its broad choices are:
4.1 Indirect and direct Export
Companies typically start with export, specifically indirect exporting—that is, they work through
independent Intermediaries. Domestic-based export merchants buy the manufacturer’s products
and then sell them abroad. Companies may eventually decide to handle their own exports. The
investment and risk are somewhat greater, but so is the potential return. Direct exporting
4.2 Licensing

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Licensing is a simple way to engage in international marketing. The licensor issues a license to a
foreign company to use a manufacturing process, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other item of
value for a fee or royalty. The licensor gains entry at little risk; the licensee gains production
expertise or a well-known product or brand name. for example,  Cadbury Nigeria, which
manufactures beverages under license from Cadbury Schweppes (UK); Nigerian Bottling
Company, which bottles Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite and Five Alive brands of soft drinks under
license from Coca-Cola (US); and SCOA Nigeria, which assembles light pick-up vehicles under
a license from Peugeot (France).
4.3. Franchising
Finally, a company can enter a foreign market through franchising, a more complete form of
licensing. The franchisor offers a complete brand concept and operating system. In return, the
franchisee invests in and pays certain fees to the franchisor. KFC, Domino's pizza, Cold Stone,
Shoprite, Krispy Kreme, and SPAR are all examples of international Franchises in Nigeria. 
4.4 Joint ventures
When two parties having distinct identities come together to establish a new company it is
known as a joint venture. The profit gained and also the loss incurred by the company is shared
or borne by both the parties
4.5 Direct Investment
The ultimate form of foreign involvement is direct ownership: The foreign company can buy part
or full interest in a local company or build its own manufacturing or service facilities
4.6 Acquisition
Rather than bringing their brands into certain countries, many companies choose to acquire local
brands for their brand portfolio.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, International Marketing can be understood from the concept of marketing as we

have seen from definition of marketing given by AMA. However international marketing has
three principles namely: principle value creation, principle competitive advantage, and principle
of Concentration of Customer Need. Lastly, others concepts related to participation in
International marketing were also identified.

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REFERENCES

Agrawal, Raj kumar, Arun Nag, A Rajagopal, Singh, Ram Singh, Surrender Sagi, K. G. S.
(2014). International marketing. In Principles of Pharmaceutical Marketing.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315859774
Czinkota, M.R. Ronkainen, I.A. (2012). International Marketing. S. l. : Cengage South-Western,
720 p.
Gillespie, K., & Hennessey, H. D. (2015). Global marketing. Global Marketing, 1–570.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315716886
Ghauri, P., & Cateora, P. (2014). International Marketing (Fourth edition ed.). Maidenhead:
McGraw-Hill Education.
Keegan, Warren J. Green, M. C. (2013). Global Marketing.
Kotabe, M. – Helsen, K. (2011). Global marketing management.5thed. Hoboken, NJ : John
Wiley, 717 p. I
Kotler, P, Armstrong, G. (2005). Principles of Marketing, 11th Edition, New York: Prentice Hall

Kotler, P, Keller, K. (2016). Marketing Management, 15th global edition, Pearson education limited
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Onkvisit, S and Shaw, J. . (2004). International Marketing: Analysis and strategy Fourth edition.
In Global marketing (pp. 1–594).
Terpstra, V. Foley, J. Sarathy, R. (2012). International Marketing. Naperville : Naper, 518 p.
ISBN
978-0981-7293-50.

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Zou, S. Cavusgil, S.T. (2002). The GMS: A Broad Conceptualization of Global Marketing
Strategy and its Effect on Firm Performance. Journal of Marketing, 66, October 2002. 40–56