CAD software business in Japan, Korea, Taiwan

This very simple Web-based market-entry strategy was first devised in early 2000, when dot-com frenzy was at its peak and everything about the Web was new, exciting and guaranteed profitable! In the pre-Google web-world of 2000 a totally Web-based market entry analysis was in many ways revolutionary; especially in the hieroglyphic markets of Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. 6 years later the Web has evolved into an indispensable part of everyday business research and search-engines such as Yahoo! and Google have developed improved ways to index and rank the explosion of online content that has occurred. Still, the methods used have withstood the test of time and are in fact even more productive now because the rapid rise in bandwidth (more Internet 'territory' can be covered in far less time on this 40Mbps ADSL than on the 64kbps ISDN I used in 2000!), the improved accuracy of the search-engines (returned results are generally more relevant) and the availability of online translation tools.

In my Japanese market-entry business (and to a lesser extent in Taiwanese and Korean market-entry projects) I have devised an intensive Web-based strategy to create a map of any new market, irrespective of country, that I need to research. The strategy initially comprises 3 stages:

1. Stage 1: Using only the Web, map the region (in this example Japan, Taiwan and South Korea) to identify:
   • key players,
   • influencers,
   • e-communities,
   • opportunities,
   • potential partners, and,
   • competitors
   in the target market (in this case 3D CAD CAM software and e-manufacturing). Using a typical Japanese 140Mbps ADSL broadband connection this stage requires about 4 - 5 days of focused 10 hour/day effort.
2. Stage 2: Prioritize the market opportunities then build-out a strategic market entry plan to achieve initial market entry by creating partnerships with the key participants identified in stage 1. This stage typically requires 2 - 3 weeks.
3. Stage 3: Aggressively implement the strategic plan from stage 2. It will typically take 3 - 6 months to achieve the initial objectives depending on industry and market sector.

This 'guerrilla marketing' activity has several advantages which are well understood in today's web-centric analysis industry:

• it is inexpensive because no travel is involved and its not people intensive.
• it has very low risk because unlike traditional face-to-face market-entry forays, no-one need be aware you are conducting web-based surveying.
• it can be eye-opening because you come across opportunities you never envisioned before mapping the region.

The only disadvantage is it is mentally exhausting work, especially in the initial stage when typing multiple search phrases in the quest to uncover the 'good stuff'. When mapping Taiwan and South Korea in 2000 I reviewed more than 6,000 Web sites; executing the same searches today would probably yield 10x the initial results even though search-engine algorithms have vastly improved relevance today compared with 6 years ago.

next - strategy stage 1 in detail  >>