Benefits of Accessing International Markets

As the Zimbabwe economy continues to deteriorate, local companies will have to sharpen their strategies to penetrate the international markets. Here are some of the benefits of accessing international markets:
·         Access to bigger markets – increased sales and profits (although from my experience one needs to sacrifice margins).
·         Diversify market risks – ameliorate over reliance on domestic market.
·         Economies of scale – drives unit costs down.
·         Source of foreign exchange earnings (may not be a key factor today in Zim but the day is fast approaching when it will all be about foreign currency).
·         Brand image enhancement – premium position resulting in improved margins.

The challenge then becomes that of being competitive from a price and quality perspective. So the advice is to simply reduce cost of production or sacrifice margins for volumes while focusing on quality.


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