Main Challenges and Problems in International Sales Management

Individual assignment

Main challenges and problems in international sales management

In this section, we will first start with summing up the challenges and problems sales management faces. After that, we will discuss how these challenges and problems can be solved and which tools we will use by solving them. The business environment is getting more and more international, mainly because of the digital market space. It enables consumers and business to interact, sell and buy beyond their country borders. To back this up, global retail sales (including in-store and online purchases) exceeded $22 trillion in 2014, according to eMarketer. They also predict that overall international retail sales will increase with 5.5% to 28.3 trillion by 2018. However, this brings certain challenges and problems with it. We identified these challenges and will explain them in the next section:

Cultural complexity

For sales management, the most important thing is to understand your customer (whether it’s another business or an individual) and their needs. But, ideally you need to understand more than only their needs, like also their preferences, values in the market, what they want to spend and how willing they are to buy your product. However, people in different countries or areas have different values and priorities. Examples of different preferences are buying products online, in china most consumers prefer to buy their products online (China is the world leading ecommerce market with almost $900 billion in 2017), while people in most foreign markets prefer to buy products in person. Another aspect of this is how consumers in different countries prefer different payment methods, in Germany for example they prefer Bank Wire transfer, while in Japan they prefer credit card payment. Some other cultural differences which can lead to complexity are religion, education and social attitudes and behavior.

The challenge for the sales management is to know all of the above mentioned in advance, so that you are able to adjust to your customer and can give this person the highest value for the lowest price.

Communication styles

A well-communicated sales message can either make or break your sale when selling overseas. Having the inability to communicate with your customer is one of the biggest barriers to selling overseas. This point can be illustrated by the KFC slogan ‘Finger-licking’ good’. When KFC wanted to enter the Chinese market, they hired a translator for this slogan. However, if you translate this slogan literally the outcome will be: ‘Eat your fingers off’, which not surprisingly led to a not  really good start for KFC in China. Yet, communication styles are not only words, it’s also dates and time displays. 5/4/2015 means for example May 4, 2015 in the United States, while it means April 5, 2015 in the United Kingdom.