1) What do you believe is Ben & Jerry's management orientation and view toward global expansion? Provide evidence from the case to support your opinion.
Ben and Jerry’s management orientation would be an ethnocentric one. It had been previously stated that Cohen had not wanted to expand into foreign markets purely for growth’s sake. As such, the few international ventures the company did partake in only amounted to $6 million in sales in 1997. The United Kingdom venture was also taken due to a promise to donate 1% or profits to charity, which was in keeping with their current marketing strategy. The greatest factor supporting my opinion would be that Ben and Jerry’s rarely implemented marketing strategies for this foreign ventures. This meant that currently implemented domestic strategies were applied to very different international markets. There was no consideration was given on culture, habits, and buying power of cosumers. Therefore, a market dependent marketing plan and distribution strategies were missing.
2) Which of the environmental factors do you think are the two most important to the decision whether or not to expand into Japan? Discuss at least two at length, providing evidence from the case narrative, and what the implications of the environments are with respect to the pending decision.
The economic environment is surely one of the largest factors influencing the decision to any company and therefore, serves as a major factor to expand into the Japanese market for Ben & Jerry. At the time, Japan was the second largest market for ice cream in the world, with annual sales near $4.5 billion. There was a gap in the product market, absence of variety flavored superprimium products with crunchy ingredients in Japan local market provided an opportunity to companies who can supply those at a reasonable price. Furthermore, the market was composed of