Sales Strategy for a Company Entering the Business World

As the Vice President of International Sales, it is my responsibility to produce and initiate the sales strategy for our company. Therefore I have researched into three possible candidates for our newest business venture in our foreign market: Vietnam, Cambodia, and Russia. These three countries would greatly benefit from our line of mobility products, which include wheelchairs, canes, walkers, and many more useful products. The people that would benefit from our mobility products are the elderly, disabled, and those of other circumstances that have affected mobility. In order to effectively and successfully initiate the sales strategy we must consider the opportunities, risks, cultural issues, political issues, economic issues, legal issues, technology issues, and the differences between the United States and the three countries in which we plan to invest.

Vietnam is a country located in Southeastern Asia. They are "slightly larger than New Mexico" (Central Intelligence Agency, 2007d). As of July 2006, Vietnam had a population of 84,402,966 (CIA, 2007d). Of that population 27% are under the age of 14, 67.1% are between the ages of 15 and 64, and 5.8% are 65 years or older (CIA, 2007d). Vietnam has a high risk for infectious diseases due to a variety of diseases which include malaria, typhoid fever, and leptospirosis (CIA, 2007d). All of these diseases can become life threatening when not treated. The official language of Vietnam is Vietnamese although the second language is English (CIA, 2007d). Most of the population can read with a literacy rate at 90.3% (CIA, 2007d). Vietnam is a Communist state with Hanoi as its capital (CIA, 2007d).

The economy of Vietnam has had many rough patches. "Vietnam is a densely-populated, developing country that in the last 30 years has had to recover from the ravages of war, the loss of financial support from the old Soviet Bloc, and the rigidities of a centrally-planned economy" (CIA, 2007d). In 2006 Vietnam's GDP was $258.6 billion, with a growth rate of approximately 7.8% per year (CIA, 2007d). Vietnams currency is the dong, which in 2006 16,037 dongs were equivalent to one United States dollar CIA, 2007d).

Vietnam's religion groups include Buddhist, Catholic, Hoa Hoa, Cao Dai, Protestant, Muslim, and none (CIA, 2007d). Vietnam communications still lag behind today, but are becoming better. In 2005 there were 9.593 million cell phone users, 15.845 million landline users, 65 AM and 7 FM radio stations, 6 television stations, and 13.1 million internet users (CIA, 2007d). I feel that Vietnam is a good candidate for investment because they are fairly open to communication, have had a past history of war, and are a developing country that has a GDP of 258.6 billion, which ranks them as 38th in the world out of 229 established countries (CIA, 2007b). There are over five million Vietnamese people, which is over 6 % of the population that have a disability, with many of them needed mobility devices (Vietnam Assistance for the Handicapped, 2005). Vietnam has one of the highest disability rates in the world.

The second country that we should sell our products to is Cambodia. Cambodia neighbors Vietnam, and is another country that is afflicted with many disabled people that are not getting their mobility needs met. Cambodia is another Southeastern Asian country, which is slightly smaller than Oklahoma (CIA, 2007a). Cambodia has a population of 13,881,427 people (CIA, 2007a). People under the age of 14 account for 35.6% of the population, while people between the age of 15 and 64 account for 61%, and those over 65 account for only 3.4% (CIA, 2007a). Cambodia, much like Vietnam, is at high risk for infectious diseases (CIA, 2007a). Cambodia is at high risk for hepatitis A, dengue fever, and Japanese encephalitis (CIA, 2007). The Japanese encephalitis causes over 30% of its survivors to become paralyzed (Directors of Health Promotion and Education, 2005).

Cambodia's main religious group is Theravada Buddhist, which accounts for 95% of the population (CIA, 2007a). The main language of the Cambodians is Khmer, which is the official language, and the other 5% is English and French (CIA, 2007a). The literacy rate for Cambodia is much lower than Vietnam at 73.6% of the population (CIA, 2007a). The government of Cambodia is much different from Vietnam as it is a "multiparty democracy under a constitutional monarchy" (CIA, 2007a). The capital is Phnom Penh (CIA, 2007a).

Cambodia has a GDP of $36.78 billion with a rate growth of 5.8% per year (CIA, 2007a). Cambodia's currency is the riel, which 4119 riel equal one United States dollar (CIA, 2007a). Communication is not as open in Cambodia as much as in Vietnam, but there is enough to do business. Cambodia has 36,400 landline telephones, but a whopping 1.062 million cell phones (CIA, 2007a). There are 2 AM and 17 FM radio stations, 11 television stations, and only 41,000 people on the internet (CIA, 2007a).

Even though communication is not as open in Cambodia as some countries, I feel that it would still be wise to invest in it. There is a high need for mobility products in this country due to the aforementioned Japanese encephalitis, and also from the previous wars. It is estimated that over 40,000 Cambodians have suffered amputations as a result of these wars and landmines (Sharp, 2003). There are still many landmines in place from the wars that have taken place. Cambodia has a high rate of disability that is continuing to rise each week with an average of 40 victims a week (Sharp, 2003).

As you can see there is a great need for mobility products in Cambodia. This need will continue to grow until all of the landmines are found. The landmines will take many more years before they will have all been found. Therefore Cambodia is a country in which we should invest. Even though the lines of communication are less than some countries, there is a much greater need for our products. There GDP is also lower than some countries, but they are still ranked 95^th in the whole world (CIA, 2007b).

Our third and final country that I suggest we invest in is Russia. Russia is located in Northern Asia (CIA, 2007c). Russia is approximately 1.8 times the size of the United States, with a population of 142,893,540 (CIA, 2007c). The population includes 14.2% people under the age of 14, 71.3% between the ages of 15 and 64, and 14.4% over the age of 65 (CIA, 2007c).

Russia's religious groups include 15-20% Russian Orthodox, 10-15% Muslim, and 2% other Christian (CIA, 2007c). The primary language is Russian, and there are many more minority languages within the country (CIA, 2007c). Russia has an excellent literacy rate at 99.6% (CIA, 2007c). The government of Russia is federation and the capital is Moscow (CIA, 2007c).

Russia's GDP is 1.723 trillion and grows approximately 6.6% annually (CIA, 2007c). Russia's currency is the Russian ruble, which one United States dollar equals 27.5 Russian rubles (CIA, 2007c). Russia is a highly communicative, in that they have 40.1 million landline telephones in use, and 120 million cell phones in use (CIA, 2007c). Russia has 323 AM and 1500 FM radio stations, 7306 television stations, and 23.7 million internet users (CIA, 2007c). As you can see, there are many ways that we can reach Russia.

One of the main reasons I suggest we invest in Russia is for the fact that many years ago Russia used to ignore and decline the fact that its country had disabled people, but that all changed when the All-Russia Society of the Disabled was formed (Lomakin, 1997). ARSD's main goal is to integrate Russians disabled people into society (Lomakin, 1997). Russia has more than 11 million disabled people (Dougherty, 2002).

Russia is a great company to invest in because they are coming into a new generation of understanding. Therefore we need to have our products in place for the people who so dearly need them. Russia has a high GDP which is 11^th in the world (CIA, 2007b). The country is fairly wealthy compared to the rest of the world and there is a great need for our products. The communication gap is filled with how many of Russian citizens have telephones and how many are connected to the internet.

There are many limitations that we have that need to be addressed. First of all Physical Movement Company is still fairly new, and is not known outside of the United States. The company has never done business outside of the United States, so they have a lot to learn. We have very few employees who were not born in this company, but those that were born can help provide us with some cultural aspects of their birth country. How to eliminate these limitations is most easily done by learning as much as we can through research and by getting our company known throughout the world little by little. Word of mouth does spread, in order to keep this good; we must provide our products without mistakes that have happened to other companies in the past.

We will need to change the language on our packaging to suite the countries we are distributing to. With this being said, there are certain stigmas and beliefs in all cultures that should be researched so no one is offended. For each of the countries, I have included a diagram of what the packaging language should be.CountryLanguage

Vietnam

Vietnamese

Cambodia

Khmer

Russia

Russian

With each of the translations we must assure that the words used are not wrong in any way towards the host country. Previous mistakes have been made where translations were mistaken for something "bad".

In each of these countries there will not be many if any competitors in that country, nor will their probably be many selling products of our kind. We will be using distributors to sell our products because it will be much too hard to sell them directly. It will be more efficient and less complicated to sell through distributors because of the language barrier that is present between countries.

I have chosen these countries because they are our best candidates to invest our products in. Each of these countries has a stable economy at this time and is in dire need of our products. They are in need because they do not have adequate supply to mobility products such as ours. Therefore it is important that we deliver our products to them to assist the mobility of the elderly, disabled, and other circumstance people as soon as possible.

References

Central Intelligence Agency. (2007a, February 8). Cambodia. Retrieved March 2, 2007, from The World Factbook Web site: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/cb.html

Central Intelligence Agency. (2007b, February 8). Rank order-gdp (purchasing power parity). Retrieved March 2, 2007, from The World Factbook Web site: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html

Central Intelligence Agency. (2007c, February 8). Russia. Retrieved March 2, 2007, from The World Factbook Web site: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/rs.html

Central Intelligence Agency. (2007d, February 8). Vietnam. Retrieved March 2, 2007, from The World Factbook Web site: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/vm.html

Directors of Health Promotion and Education. (2005). Japanese encephalitis. Retrieved March 2, 2007, from DHPE Web site: http://www.astdhpphe.org/infect/jpenceph.html

Dougherty, J. (2002, January 16). Glasnost reaches russian disabled: Russia is slowly but surely introducing facilities for the disabled. Retrieved March 2, 2007, from Johnson's Russia List Web site: http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6027-6.cfm

Lomakin, A. (1997, January). All russian society of the disabled. Retrieved March 2, 2007, from Center for Civil Society International Web site: http://www.civilsoc.org/nisorgs/russwest/moscow/alrusdis.htm

Sharp, B. (2003, October 20). Landmines in cambodia. Retrieved March 2, 2007, from http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/mines.htm

Vietnam Assistance for the Handicapped. (2005). Assistive devices. Retrieved March 2, 2007, from VNAH Web site: http://vnah-hev.org/index.php?action=website-view&WebSiteID=60&WebPageID=993