Successful foreign companies have routinely outsourced strategic
planning, marketing, licensing, logistics, regulatory
compliance, transport, and/or intellectual property support
functions to their in-country, domestic third party vendors for
utilization in their local markets. These foreign companies
quickly discovered that, in attempting to replicate their
success when transitioning to and sustaining new North American
markets, such domestic vendors will likely not possess the
international business acumen and experience necessary to safely
and effectively shepherd the foreign company through the
significant challenges in these functional areas that desired
growth into North American marketplaces will require.
Some
foreign companies have attempted to address this lack of
internal acumen or experience for expansion into international
marketplaces by hiring full time employees in North American
countries in order to supply that level and breadth of local
expertise. What they learn, however, is that it is grossly
inefficient and wasteful to hire enough full-time employees in
the new markets to cover every conceivable functional area in
which the foreign company will need immediate business expertise
for its expansion.
Foreign companies that have
successfully transitioned into North American markets have
learned that they can independently contract for the specific
local business functional services and expertise that they
require, when they need such services, and only when they need
them, all without having to shoulder the overhead burden of
maintaining a permanent employee work force to provide those
services, even when provision of the services is not ongoing.
More importantly, when the foreign company can find a single
services vendor with the skills and resources to anticipate ALL
potential functional service areas and issues, and apply its
knowledge and skills toward helping the client surmount ALL
functional challenges, that is the business solution that
provides the foreign company with the most effectiveness,
flexibility, accountability, cost and time efficiency,
responsiveness, and transparency.