Cofemel´s internationalization plan to Poland

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics.

Internationalization has become a crucial process for the survival and growth of firms in general so that, this thesis presents an internationalization plan through a franchising strategy for Cofemel. It is a clothing company creator of the brand Tiffosi in 1978. Its main activity is to manufacture and trade exterior apparel, which includes the common clothing, such as: trousers, shirts, jeans, sweaters, dresses and accessories. Since Cofemel opened its first Tiffosi´s store, the brand started to grow fast. But, contrary of what seemed a good performance in 2008, the firm was near the bankrupt mostly because it was a family´s business where members were poorly prepared exercising executive and strategic positions. The strategy and objectives were not clear for a long period before 2008 so that it lead the company to have 29 millions of sales but a negative net income of 6 million euros in that year. VNC Group – a group led by António Vila Nova – in 2008 decided to buy Cofemel in that situation and thanks to his long experience in this market he was able to restructure the company totally and turn it into a competitive and sustainable firm. In 2009, the results became positives and Cofemel with its brand Tiffosi started to growth strategically on the market, establishing objectives for the future. Therefore, it emerged the opportunity to expand to Poland and the entry mode was chosen using an analysis of various available hypotheses and a market study. It also presents an implementation plan with duration of two years.