International Business Management Analysis:: Strategy, Partnership, Investment, Benefits & Global Brands and Supply Chain

I wrote this book to help you develop a powerful insight into getting your organization to cross your country's borders: to get established or have an extension overseas or invest in other countries, directly or indirectly. It sounds simple but it is in fact most complex to solve such an equation of many unknowns.
The book will help you keep your Business flying high, above the clouds as an Entrepreneur who wishes to try this international business exercise. The inherent complexity may strike you as overwhelming, and may carry risk with it. One of the things you will learn from this book first and foremost is how to alleviate this complexity and further on how to carry a basic Risk Analysis. You will learn the method for your Business Analysis and the techniques to apply the method. You will be introduced to a powerful method to analyze the whole process using a magic framework, the CAGE (Cultural, Administrative, Geographic and Economic).

In short the CAGE framework will help you assess your business in light of the culture of the host country, within its administrative set-up, in its geographical context and with regard to the economic scope of that country. Once this is done, you will learn the techniques to raise pertinent questions which lead you to develop your International Business Management Strategy including Partnership feasibility, the most appropriate nature of Investment, the Benefits of the venture, your Brand and the Supply Chain involved - all within the globalization we live in.

In the first case Study, the case of 'DeBeers as they went to China' you will experience the CAGE framework application and then see how it leads to pertinent questions, such as: How does the move look from a strategic point of view (Strategy)? Was it a profitable move (Benefits)? Was Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) an appropriate retail venture partner for DeBeers in China (Partnership)?

DeBeers has a 'culture' of a mining organization aspiring for retail. They needed a partner that could offer retailing skills and manufacturing operations combined. LVMH offered a “vertically integrated business” that involved just that . This makes it a most appropriate partner among many – that DeBeers considered for this separate business entity with a focus on China- such as Richemont (which owns Cartier, and Tiffany, the US Jewellery business). With LMVH, DeBeers managed to secure a closer 'Proximity' to the retail trade and hence a shorter 'Supply Chain'.

As an Entrepreneur, a Manager, a CEO you use your CAGE framework results to adapt your Business to that part of the world you are moving into, having learnt how you may adapt your offerings to it.

You will master the method and the techniques further by experiencing how they are applied to the second Case Study, that of Nigeria, which only a short while ago was at the headlines daily (not for its current troubles, but for) its impressive International Business development. Many foreign Organizations dusted off their CAGE to look at Nigeria, both from indirect Investment and Financial Direct Investment (FDI). This will lead you to appreciate how to raise and answer such questions as:

• 'How difficult is it to invest and repatriate profits from Nigeria'?


• Is the context more or less beneficial for certain types of industries?


• Is Nigeria following appropriate policies to encourage global brands to work with local companies?
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