Retail Doesn’t Cross Borders
-Here is why and what to do about it-
Reflection
The article at hand "Retail Doesn't Cross Borders- Here's why and what to do about it" written by Marcel Corstjens, the Unilever Chaired Professor of Marketing at Insead, and Rajiv Lal, the Stanley Roth Sr. Professor of Retailing at Harvard Business School, was published in the Havard Business Review of April 2012 on the pages 104-111 and deals with the issues of expanding abroad for international grocery retailers and the resulting problems they have to face.
In the beginning of their article they state that economical recession in the U.S. And Europe lead easily to focussing on feasible emerging markets in the developing world
The opinion that globalisation is not a receipt for growth and emerging sales rates.
Corstjens and Lal put the focus on grocery retailers and got the result that within a few exceptions the retailers have not gained any growth by expanding abroad. They stress that the lack of a close connection to the retail market abroad and the dominating local players made it difficult for emerging grocery retailers to find a place in the market.
Some retailers found new strategies in order to emerge domestically as well. They express many reasons for expanding which varies, but Cortjens and Lal point out that the main goal is growth.
By stating that many companies are lead by opportunistic decision making, which threatens the long-run strategies. As an example, the expansion of Wal-Mart in the UK in 1999 is given.
As a reason of failure abroad the authors state out the possibility of different consumer tastes in the host countries especially in food products. In contrast to this, it is mentioned that worldwide suppliers made their success in globalisation. So must be another factor due to
