Since H&M opened the first shop in Sweden in 1947, using an American concept of shops selling stylish clothes with low prices bring H&M successful in the domestic market. H&M started to expand internationally from 1964. Not only Europe market, H&M also enter in North America, Asia and Middle East market.
H&M became one of the biggest worldwide leading fashion retailers. Until Year 2010, H&M has around 2,000 stores in 37 markets (Data from H&M-US Website). Details of market overview of H&M can be referred to Appendix I.
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Source: Annual Report of H&M 2009 http://www.hm.com/filearea/corporate/fileobjects/pdf/en/ANNUAL_REPORT_ARCHIVE2009__ITEM_3_1269424409886.pdf In this part, we will study how H&M enter into United Stated market
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It can let H&M gather information and avoid some uncertainty.
What is the “Wholly Owned Subsidiary”?
When H&M decided to enter American market, management use wholly owned subsidiary as entry strategy for H&M using. Why H&M decide to use wholly owned subsidiary to enter into America? It will discuss later.
Wholly owned subsidiary is the operation in a host country that are fully owned by a foreign parent firm. Company can involve marketing, assembly or full-scale integrated production operation. Also, company is necessary for capital investment to undertake the ownership option. For this strategy, H&M can own the stock 100 percent and set up a new operation in a foreign country as Greenfield Venture.
Why H&M choose “Wholly Owned Subsidiary”
One of the advantages of wholly owned subsidiary is that H&M has a free hand to establish the strategy for the subsidiary including marketing strategy, production, even window design. It enables H&M to keep all the profit from American market and don’t need to share profit with partners.
As H&M mainly take the way of investing directly in the American market, wholly owned subsidiary can make H&M have tight control over operation which is another advantage. Everything can be under control by H&M from the location of shop, arrangement inside the shop, range of merchandise. Therefore, the stock in American market can be shared 100% by H&M. Finally, a
WHSmith can be broken down into 3 market segments. Firstly, the High Street division accounts for 565 stores in prominent locations with a high footfall (WHSmith PLC). Secondly, the Travel division consists of 490 retail outlets in airports, railway stations, motorway service stations and hospitals. Thirdly, the company operates online.
Anderson and Coughlan8 (1987) summarise the entry mode as a choice between company owned or controlled methods - "integrated" channels - or "independent" channels. Integrated channels offer the advantages of planning and control of resources, flow of information, and faster market penetration, and are a visible sign of commitment. The disadvantages are that they incur many costs (especially marketing), the risks are high, some may be more effective than others (due to culture) and in some cases their credibility amongst locals may be lower than that of controlled independents. Independent channels offer lower performance costs, risks, less capital, high local knowledge and credibility. Disadvantages include less market information flow, greater coordinating and control difficulties and motivational difficulties. In addition they may not be willing to spend money on market development and selection of good intermediaries may be difficult as good ones are usually taken up
H&M cruelly underlined the continuity of its expansion strategy in long-term perspective (Regnér and Yildiz, 2014), which means continuing to open stores ultimately (Barman and Petersson, 2002). It is planned that H&M will establish another 300 new stores, especially China, the United States and the United Kingdom as the largest growing market. Despite the countries mentioned before, South America, Latvia, Indonesia, Bulgaria and Thailand will be involved (Regnér and Yildiz, 2014).
* Firm infrastructure: H&M is present in 44 markets in the world, holds more than 2,500 stores and employs over 94,000 people. Its head office is located in Stockholm, Sweden where there also are the main departments for finance, buying and design, advertising, accounts, communications, logistics,
Ownership advantages could be intangible assets like technology and information, managerial, marketing and entrepreneurial skills, organisational systems, access to intermediate or final goods markets, a production process, patent and blueprint. The ownership advantage includes some firm specific valuable market power or cost advantage on the firm sufficient to outweigh the disadvantages of doing business abroad. They are closely related to the technological and innovative capabilities and the economic development levels of source countries.
Until the firm gets the competitiveness position, it needs subsidiary in R&D and finance for company operation. However, after getting the position, the firm relies on the government in its sales promotion, that is, along with the company growth, the private firm has changed its strategic resource that the government subsidy is utilized.
H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB is one of the largest clothing-retail companies in Europe and across the world. The mission statement of the company has been to enhance quality and affordability. The company operates in more than 60 countries globally where it has also established physical stores (Alexander, 13). H&M has a strong financial performance, which is attributed to pricing strategies, product promotion, and its effective distribution channel. H&M has online stores that allow customers to place and receive the goods at their convenience. While the company continues to post positive financial performance, it still faces internal and external challenges. The change in tastes and preferences in the fashion industry has a negative effect on the company.
The business risks that accompanied the move included the fear that the two competing brands, now subsidiaries of the same company, would cannibalize each other’s sales, thus splitting the profits. Also, there were concerns that the duplication of roles that would result from each company having its own distinct management structure would increase operational costs, minimizing overall profitability. Another fear was that there would be diminished brand awareness for both brands as consumers would treat the two retailers as one company, thus benefiting the competition (Laurent, Lambkin 803).
A distributor often demands a long period of exclusivity, so the foreign company needs to choose one that has the right experience selling the type of products that it owns and has customers for the kind of
Delivers brand-conscious long and short-term growth solutions in support of sales and revenue goals. Researches, analyzes, builds business case for and executes ROI-driven marketing programs and sales tools. Nurtures partnerships across lines of business to ensure alignment with enterprise and regional business strategies. Polished communicator who fosters collaboration and builds consensus among stakeholders. Thrives on complex leadership demands and works well within time-sensitive environments. Versatile strategist, target marketer, and sales support professional with focus on smart branding, reputation management and corporate compliance. Strong focus on customer experience and customer expectations in the financial industry.
A major factor in the global business strategy of ABC would be the formation of strategic alliances, outsourcing mechanisms and foreign subsidiaries in a different region of the world, India in particular. Emphasis will get accorded to the expansion mechanisms of FMC in India. Since the cost of doing business in India is relatively cheap, this paper observes that the ABC Corporation would have the potential of establishing or investing more in foreign subsidiaries in not only India but the larger Asian region. The mentioned case happens because ABC would face competition from other world leading companies in the auto and IT industry. As such, establishments of strategic alliances would also get warranted. A look at
In this assignment, there have several ten questions for us for selection, I have choose the question five for my assignment this time, this question is regarding to two areas, one is the market entry strategy and explain why no single strategy can be used in all circumstances; another one is explaining why franchising is popular method of entering markets abroad and describe its characteristic.
Ownership Advantages (Firm Specific Advantages) Dunning (1991, pp 123) defined ownership advantages as "any kind of income generating assets which make it possible for firms to engage in foreign production". He also pointed out that ownership advantages are concerned with the extent to which the firm has tangible and intangible assets unavailable to other firms (Dunning, 1980; Dunning, 1988). Ikechi Ekeledo, K Sivakumar (2004, pp 72) defined ownership advantages as the competitive or monopolistic advantages of the firm that helps the foreign firm to overcome the disadvantages of competing with local firms. Salih Kusluvan (1998, pp 175) stated that the ownership advantages are the unique internal factors that create the firms’
THE 1st tool that can be used in analysing an industry is Porter’s Five Forces.
MNEs have specific expectations for each of its foreign subsidiaries, cooperative ventures and other forms of operations modes, in terms of market performance and contribution to total profits and competitiveness. It is important to recognise constraints that affect goal attainment when evaluating subsidiary performance. These include: