Standardization in International Marketing

It was in the Fordism era in the early 19th century where standardization was the most widely used strategy across the industrialized countries (Johansson, 2000). Henry Ford when he manufactured Ford Car, the company produced only black Ford. Standardization refers a company providing the same identical product across the globe (Keegon, 2002). Most of the time they are considered to be global brands (Johanson, 2000). Some of the example that could be considered global brands is Coca Cola, McDonalds or Amazon. However, they too have some degree of adaptation in taste or price when it comes to marketing in a different market.

Today, firms have to deal with a global marketplace; marketers have no other choice. Participation in global marketing has begun to shift from a mere “option” to an imperative. The world is becoming more homogeneous. Distinctions between national markets

The article is divided into four parts. First part focuses on the traditional perspective on international marketing strategies focusing on the dichotomy between standardization and adaptation. The second part examines key assumptions underlying the philosophy of global standardization. The third part focuses on the constraints to implementation of global standardization. The last part of the article concludes on the bases of its review that a more general approach is suitable which incorporates various degrees of standardization or adaptation strategies. It is an important article as it concludes that an effective global marketing strategy does not guarantee the marketing of standardized products and global brands worldwide. It might work for some companies but cannot work for all.

The definition of the concept of standardization in business is hugely dependent on the nature of business activity under consideration (Roach 2007). Although the concept is easily defined in the marketing context, since it is defined in terms of the 4Ps (product, price, place and promotion), the concept is more complex when used in the context of the product choices. A multinational corporation would be forced to make a decision on whether to adopt complete standardization, which involves creation of completely new product for each geographical market or complete

The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s leading beverage company, with markets in over 200 countries and over 1,100 brands under their portfolio. The company was founded in 1886 and is currently headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. This paper seeks to explain the impact of globalization on the standardization versus adaptation decision using examples from the Coca-Cola Company’s performance and strategies since their inception as a company.

International marketing is an exceedingly difficult and challenging activity for a multinational corporation (MNC) marketer. According to Cateora, Gilly, and Graham (2013), “international marketing is the performance of business activities designed to plan, price, promote, and direct flow of the companies goods and services to consumers of users in more than one nation for profit” (p. 10). International marketing strategies and its efficiency assists in the expansion of an organization. The development of global markets was established by the needs of the consumer. Marketing strategies are extremely important to a firm when they decided to move out of the domestic arena. Accepting and applying

The progress of humanity and human beings can be attributed to one important factor and that is the strong capability of human beings to understand and adapt to cultural differences. Respecting cultural differences has brought the human beings close together and has tied them in a strong bond. The conquering of the cultural differences has also introduced us to a new terminology, global economy, which is a global system of production, distribution and consumption. The world has become a singular unit because the pace of economic development has accelerated due to an increase in marketing not only at a local level, but also at a global level. Global

With respect to product, standardized marketing differs from its opposite extreme concentrated marketing as products are introduced to a foreign country without any change*. Although the strategy is

There is a tendency for international corporate-level strategies to be substituted for global marketing strategies; namely, multi-domestic strategy to concentrated marketing, global strategy to standardized marketing, and transnational strategy to differentiated marketing. However, the borderline lies as the former focuses broadly on firm’s operations while the latter narrowly involves factors within the marketing mix that directly influences the customer behavior. Although this distinction is used to promote accuracy across the paper, there will be

De Wit and Meyer (1998) refer to market tendency towards homogeneous variety and tighter international linkages as globalization. The need for global strategy is outlined by the fact that companies are subject to global forces and consumer demands. As a consequence, firms are faced with a challenge of modifying their existent strategies to gain and sustain their competitive advantage in a rapidly changing environment. A well-designed global strategy can help a firm to gain a competitive advantage, that as identified by Sumantra Ghoshal of INSEAD can arise from Efficiency, Strategy, Risk, Learning and Reputation (Appendix1). Therefore, to create a successful global strategy, managers first must

All the factors that are external to the organization form the marketing environment for it. These factors also form the marketing environment when we talk about it in a global context. These factors cannot be controlled, even though the marketers can influence these factors to some extent.

At the same time, marketing strategies play a key role in unleashing potential for increased efficiencies and integration of upstream activities across markets (Porter 1986). While to some degree mediated by the spread of modular production and mass-customization techniques, standardization of products or product lines across countries will, for example, create

The most challenging decision that a company may face in internationalization is the degree of standardization or adaptation in its operations. The question of standardization or adaptation affects all avenues of a business’ operations, such as R&D, finance, production, organizational structure, procurement, and the marketing mix. Whether a company chooses to standardize or adapt its operations depends on its attitudes toward different cultures. These attitudes are defined by three orientations toward foreign culture: ethnocentric, polycentric, and geocentric.

The idea of conceptualization of all factors of marketing process influenced standardization in the different ways was developed by Jain in 1989 either. Firstly, the academic mentioned that many papers were written lately on globalization of marketing although we still do not have any conclusive theory or practice. In an attempt to constitute a research agenda on the standardization question, the author developed 13 research propositions for each factor. Due to empirical disclosure demanded a theoretical base, the paper of this publisher aimed to create a standard for making standardization decisions by evolving synthesis of theoretical and empirical works in marketing management, international business, and strategic planning. A proposed framework in this paper has been lacking of

International marketing is an area in which exact work by professionals is regularly more advanced and perceptive than academic contributions (Wind, 1979). For the expansion of international marketing, firms require both general learning and market-specific learning. Market-specific knowledge is picked up principally through involvement in the business sector, while learning of the operations can be exchanged starting with one nation then onto the next (Andersen, 1993). For experiential knowledge of the market, an immediate connection between business sector information and business sector commitment is proposed and HR can be considered as a measurement of knowledge (Andersen, 1993). Consequently, the wider the knowledge about the business