Mark Delaney highlights the key challenges facing companies competing in global markets
When we talk about exporting to different cultures we are not only talking about national cultures defined in geographical terms. Culture can be used to describe a social system created by a group of people and these people have established rules about how they communicate, interact and maintain order. This culture may not be limited to race or ethnicity, but can also relate to subsections of a society.
If your product is aimed at a very specific target market then there is a good chance that this product will require only basic modification from country to country. If your product is aimed at a larger, more general market, there is a higher chance that wider-reaching changes will have to be implemented in order to make the product suitable for mass marketing.
In order to achieve international success, a business must understand its target customers, not only in measurable ways such as education levels and income, but on more intangible levels. What moves them? What aspects of your product or service engage them on an emotional level?
While customers may not be aware of their depth of response to design they do respond strongly to form, detail, colour and balance. Design relates to every aspect of the experience, visual, tactile, and emotional. While your customer may not easily be able to articulate their feelings about these aspects of your product, they are nevertheless extremely important.
When carrying out customer research it is essential that you formulate an approach that allows you and your design team to understand what your customers actually need, rather than what they say they need.
Over the past decade there has been an increasing interest from business in non-quantitative customer research. Using techniques such as ethnography will not provide a clear set of answers that can be presented in graphs. It is open-ended, holistic and discovery-orientated and if used correctly will give incredible insight and knowledge into your customers needs and desires that can then be used to inform and guide the subsequent design process.
In order to successfully export your product or service it is important that you have a clear understanding of what it is you are selling. Not just in technical terms, but in terms of its value within the markets you export to.
In his article Design Differentiation for Global Companies: Value exporters and value collectors (Design Management Journal, Volume 12, No 4, 2001), Clive Grinyer, Director of Design and Usability, OrangeWorld, discusses two strategies for exporting products to the global marketplace.
The first strategy is that used by companies he calls 'value exporters'. These companies have strong values that are often linked to national characteristics. They use design as a tool to emphasise either their national origin or the set of values that differentiate them from other products.
The second group he calls 'value collectors'. These companies may well have a strong internal culture, but their outward style is less identifiable. They have to invest more time and money in researching their potential markets and then use design in order to create products to connect with their international customers. Understanding which of these approaches is most applicable to your product is central to your approach to design for international markets.
You can have the most brilliantly designed product in the world, but if you have a poor understanding of the target audience, a poor business plan, or both it will fail. For good design to be good business it must be pursued as an integral part of a wider set of activities.
For example, while a company may have invested in a successful industrial design and engineering process it may have failed to consider the total customer experience. This includes how the customer becomes aware of the product - will it be through TV advertising, product promotion or product placement, for example? And how will the customer take ownership of the product? Will this be by ordering from a catalogue, purchasing online or in store?
Considering all these areas and more leads to a significantly improved total customer experience and the likelihood of success is dramatically improved.
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