Carrefour's Asian Expansion: Leveraging Local Partnerships With Marketing Mix - Essay Sample

Introduction

Carrefour's marketing mix has kept the company consistent across markets helping the company leverage the local partners when venturing new markets. In the Asian market, the marketing mix strategy has enabled the company's marketing team to learn the Asian business environment, particularly the culture through the fostered relationship. This knowledge has helped the company to expand its operations in the other six markets across Asia. The marketing mix strategy has made the company aware of the international complexities involved in the market, such as cultural, political, economic, and legal systems, and how to address them effectively. The marketing mix has kept the company consistent across markets by seeking partnerships with locals. For instance, in Kuwait, the company partner with local dealers to open stores. This strategy has been used to open stores across the Middle East. Through the marketing mix, local partners have assisted Carrefour in adjusting to the corporate culture, offer governmental contacts, as well as smooth the market entrance processes. This strategy market mix has kept consistent in markets by helping the company to address the problems such as increased competition and global recession. Through the marketing mix, Carrefour has been able to adapt to the cultural and religious differences of the locals. Carrefour has consistently provided a value of uniqueness. The company ensures that all the services it offers are unique, and according to the needs of the local consumers. Despite the products it offers in all its markets is the same, the operations of the company in each respective market are designed to accommodate the unique differences in each market. This value has enabled the company to effectively address any issues and challenges it faces in the markets it operates.

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The local partners have helped Carrefour to overcome difficulties in the new markets by helping the company personnel to learn the local culture, economies, language, political, and legal systems of the local markets. These local partnerships have helped the company's marketing team to learn and understand the new markets and requirements. Such partnerships have given the company experiences different challenges and adjust to the local culture as well as provided governmental contacts as well as smooth the market entrance procedure for the company. Through the local partnerships, the company has been able to cater to the religious differences and expectations of the local market, acquire translation skills, and be sensitive to the local language differences. The local partnerships have helped the company to forge local supply networks and overcome difficulties in infrastructure. The company has created strong relations and bonds with locals through these partnerships and also counter competitors such as Wal-Mart and Tesco. A significant advantage of this approach is that it has increased the influence of the company in the local markets and globally and better local knowledge base. This approach has enabled Carrefour to offer quality customer service through an understanding of the local needs and strong market base in these local markets.

The main drivers of globalization described in this case are market, government, and competition. These factors have impacted Carrefour differently, depending on the nature of the local market. The market driver of government has affected Carrefour by dictating how the company should operate under. For instance, depending on the government policy, the company must adjust its operations to meet the governmental restrictions while other government policies limit which product it can sell, what prices to sell on particular products, and in some cases, the local partner is chosen by the government. The company was forced to operate in politically risky markets in Pakistan. At the same time, the Indian government sued the company for alleged antitrust issues, which can force the company to sell its stake to the local Indonesian retailer. The driver of the market impacted the company through the global recession and competition. This forced the company to sell its Japanese outlets to the Japanese partner and closed 21 more stores in Belgium. These impacts provided the company with experience on how to encounter down cycles in the economies in the future. The different natures of markets such as the open market in Singapore and Egypt have dictated to the company what economic system to use. Through the market driver, the company has been forced to rearrange its operations. For example, in Thailand, Carrefour was forced to abandon hypermarkets and switched to mini-supermarkets.

Factors that can lead to international marketing complexity include cultural and language and religion requirements, legal, among other political considerations. The cultural factors have helped the company to grow through fostering of local relationships and bonds with the locals. This helped the marketing team and the entire company to understand the needs of the local market and apply the locally acquired skills and relationships to further its operations. For instance, the success of Carrefour in Kuwait, China, and the Middle East is majorly attributed to the cultural constraints which the company leveraged for its expansion. The religious requirements helped the company by allowing it to participate in charity works, which helped it meet its social obligations in these markets. In return, the organization acquired good public image and reputation, which has played a part in its growth and expansion in these markets and others. On the contrary, the legal requirements have hurt the company, especially in Indonesia, where it was accused and sued of antitrust issues. If the company is found guilty, it will lose its Indonesia market and forced to sell its stake to the local retailer. Also, this will hurt the image and reputation of the company. In Pakistan, the company's marketing team was forced to operate under a political risk environment. Although it succeeded, it endangered the lives of its personnel, which could hurt the organization. From the evaluation of these marketing complexities, the impact has been positive because the company managed to succeed in these markets further even after such encounters and experiences.