Richard Eichele

How to sell Industry 4.0 to Central and Eastern Europe Richard Eichele

Do you plan to increase long-term sales through products in the automation technology sector that your company supplies?If you are thinking about which countries you should start important internationalisation projects in addition to China and the USA, I will give you the right tools with this paper to conquer the Central and Eastern European markets. For companies from the most diverse countries and industries, growth by increasing sales is one of the most important factors when it comes to corporate success. In times of steadily increasing competition between companies in and saturation on home markets it is a difficult undertaking to achieve the desired growth year after year. In order to withstand this growth pressure, the expansion of business activities to foreign markets seems unavoidable for many companies. In order to be able to make a well-founded decision about an expansion and a market entry into new countries, there are some factors that have to be analysed beforehand. These include, for example, questions regarding local conditions or the current competitive situation in the target country. In this elaboration you will find a definition of a market entry strategy for countries in Central and Eastern Europe, which is one of the most important markets for the world of industrial automation. First, an overview of the general problem of internationalisation of companies and a short introduction of the economic framework and the competitive situation in Central and Eastern Europe will take place. Subsequently, methods for classifying target markets into market typologies will be presented on the basis of market attractiveness and market barrier criteria. In the last sections of this elaboration these methods will be used, extended and supported by empirical data. After that, an internationalisation approach is determined from the market typologies of all countries in Central and Eastern Europe.