How to Push Your Business to Get Growth From Developing Markets

In a recent Wall Street Journal Article, "Philips's CEO Urges Local Strategies for Emerging Markets," reporter Paul Glader interviews Philips Electronics NV Chief Executive Gerard Kleisteriee.

Kleisteriee shines a magnificent light on his firm's global strategy. The company aims to boost emerging-market sales from 30% to 50% by 2015 by focusing on China.

An interesting snapshot:

WSJ: What do companies have to do differently now in emerging markets?

Mr. Kleisterlee: It does not suffice to serve only the metropolitan areas. In India and in China you need to have good rural distribution.

Increasingly we, and also our competitors, develop products in these emerging markets for the emerging markets. So it is not a European or a U.S. concept that gets sold in China or India but things that we have designed, engineered and manufactured locally for the local market.

Read the entire interview here.

By the way, I did not know Philips has an online store.

Emerging Markets Make Up a Growing Share of Japanese Exports

Sound familiar?

Japanese companies from Toyota to Canon are for the first time looking at poor people in emerging markets as potential consumers.

To offset the slump at home, Japan is seeking new, high-growth markets.

See where they are headed here.

Similar story: "Japan's Exporters Eye Every Rupee"

Posted by: The Global Small Business Blog

Panasonic Goes Local to Achieve Global Economies of Scale

Television, consumer electronic and white good producer Panasonic Corp., which already has a sizable chunk of Japan's home appliance market, is aggressively pushing into India and Europe by considering local production in those areas to take advantage of lower distribution and manufacturing costs not to mention acquiring a competitive edge in delivery time.

Important Insight

Panasonic sees ...

... emerging markets -- defined by the company as Brazil, India, Russia, China, Vietnam, Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey and the Balkan states -- overtaking North America and Europe as the biggest overseas market for its overall consumer products by 2013.

Read more about this here.

Panasonic sporting some heavy duty innovation.

Saturate Your Local Market? What Is Left For Growth?

L'Oreal, the giant luxury cosmetic company, is holding its own revenue-wise in comparison to its competitors such as Estee Lauder Cos. and Procter and Gamble.  In the first half, sales of L'Oreal's products, including Lancome and Kiehl's, plunged 13%. To me, that's not a big dive.

L'Oreal Chief Executive Jean-Paul Agon, with company headquarters based in the outskirts of Paris, shares his business vision for the future on L'Oreal with journalist Christina Passariello of the WSJ.

Biggest takeaway?

WSJ: L'Oréal already has a wide presence in emerging markets. What is left for growth?

Mr. Agon: We are really pushing our acceleration of business in new markets. Even this year, if Western Europe, North America or Japan are tough, the rest of the world is doing very well. China is growing, Brazil is growing, India is growing. And we are also opening up new markets where we were not before. Since the beginning of the year we have opened three new subsidiaries—in Egypt, Pakistan and Kazakhstan.

The internationalization is really doing well. For example, [first-half sales growth in] Brazil is 21%, India is 16%, South Africa is 19%, China is 14%. In a crisis year, when a big country like India or China or Brazil is growing double-digit like this, it's very encouraging.

Read the entire interview here and learn about L'Oreal's anti-crisis strategy.

Photo:  Kate Winslet for Lancome.