Ecommerce as internationalization strategy: an exploratory study based on premium fashion brazilian brands: case study of farfetch

As stated by Hoffmann and Coste-Manière (2012) “The web is a mass medium that contrast completely with the traditional codes of exclusivity associated with the luxury industry, and has long been simply rejected by the luxury industry for being an illegitimate distribution channel.” Meanwhile this market presents an incomparable pace of growth and is gradually changing the existing retailing business model and companies must be aware of this change and capable to adapt to it. The internet and cross-border sales already changed the competition throughout retailing and it will increase even more, so companies must be ready to face it. Internet has shown its great opportunity for all markets, although luxury/premium market is not yet taking the proper advantage of its potential, but the necessity to be an omnichannel business strategy is growing. This paper presents an exploratory research based on a case study of how premium fashion Brazilian brands are using Farfetch, e-commerce, as an entry market strategy and how this affects them. The research question of this study is: How is Farfetch helping on the internationalization of Brazilian premium fashion brands?, and in order to answer it was conducted an in-depth interview with the Brazilian head of business development of Farfetch, apart an extensive secondary data research. As expected the study found a list of trade-offs of using an e-commerce, luxury specialized, with a marketplace approach to the brands willing to internationalize. As stated by Altagamma and McKinsey (2015) study “[...] luxury brands have no choice but to embrace the digital era and become truly omnichannel. This will require them a radical rethinking of both their customer experience of their consumer engagement strategy.” Looking either from the Farfetch point of view, trying to understand why they offer this opportunity to the brands, or also from the brand side if this is a manageable approach. This study presents a contribution for both sides, trying to give tools to the brands on understanding the internationalization reasons and approach, as well as explaining Farfetch business model, and the advantages it can bring to them, at the same time of a general market trend analysis for Farfecth.

Estratégias de internacionalização: investimentos diretos externos de multinacionais brasileiras

With the improvement of the international trade on the last decades, the Brazilian firms are searching to operate beyond the national borders in order to guarantee its presence on the key markets. The dissertation aimed to analyze the motivations and the strategies of internationalization implemented by the firms: Petrobras, Vale, Embraer, Gerdau and Marcopolo as well as determine the existence of a dominant strategy. In order to do that, Dunning¿s eclectic paradigm and the strategies of internationalization supported by him were revised along with the main literature from Brazilian authors on the internationalization process of the selected firms. The comparative analysis between the strategies of internationalization selected and the industrial sector, origin of capital and the preferred mode of entrance on the markets were done through an exploratory research, with a qualitative character and collection of secondary data from the internationalization process of the firms. At the end of this research, it was possible to identify that each firm had adopted a predominant strategy however it was also possible to observe that new strategies were aggregated in complementation of the previous one. Besides that, no evidence was found between the predominant strategy of internationalization and the origin of the capital neither with the preferred mode of entrance.

A internacionalização de uma empresa brasileira de serviços de saúde na década de 1990: estudo de caso sobre AMIL

Estudo de caso sobre uma empresa do setor de prestação de saúde que inicializou um processo inédito de internacionalização para os mercados americano e argentino no início da década de 1990.No intuito de explicar este movimento, contextualizamos esta expansão em um cenário econômico, político e cultural peculiar à época tanto no Brasil, quanto nas localidades em que a mesma se implantou. Através de uma pesquisa de cunho qualitativo, pretende-se elucidar a razão da escolha de uma estratégia de internacionalização inédita para a época, tendo em vista o setor específico de negócios, seguindo-se a análise dos resultados obtidos

International entry modes in Brazil and the CAGE distances effects

The international entry mode choices have a relevant importance for the impact they have on successful internationalization strategies. Many theories have been developed to describe which entry mode may be better than another according to the particular situation. The CAGE Distances Framework developed by Ghemawat to identify which dimensions companies should look when develop an internationalization strategy, may be useful to identify also how those dimensions impact on the international entry mode decision. The aim of this thesis is to study which kind of relationship exists between Cultural, Administrative, Geographic and Economic Distances and international entry mode choice. It analyzes a sample of companies that have been entered in Brazil through a logistic regression. According to this analysis, a negative and significant relation between Cultural Distance and need of control exists, a positive one exists between Administrative and Geographic, while no significant relationship has been found with the Economic dimension. Those findings are conceivably explainable through the theories found by scholars, but a deeper analysis that may take into account the specificity of every country is highly recommended, like the one developed with Brazil in this thesis.

Análise do estado da arte das teorias da internacionalização: uma revisita às teorias aplicadas aos fatores relacionados ao modo de entrada e à localização de empresas que buscam a atuação em mercados estrangeiros

Estudos sobre a internacionalização de empresas avançam em todos os setores com o objetivo de identificar oportunidades de crescimento e aprendizado para os negócios que possuam características globais. O objetivo desse trabalho está na revisitação das teorias de internacionalização para o entendimento da importância dos aspectos de localização e do modo de entrada no movimento pela busca de mercados estrangeiros de forma a assegurar a permanência nos países que apresentam características diferentes da localidade de origem; consiste também na verificação da necessidade de mitigação de problemas referentes aos custos, da definição do modo de entrada e da decisão sobre o portfólio de produtos que farão parte da nova unidade de negócios. A internacionalização de empresas é um processo de entrada em novos mercados fora da região onde surgiram e implica em estudos que não estão somente relacionados à operação comercial, mas que demandam análises mais abrangentes como o aspecto da distância física. Um estudo de caso, que complementa essa pesquisa, apresenta os fatores de localização e a escolha do modo de entrada considerados para a internacionalização da Klabin na Argentina e seus aspectos decisórios com base na estratégia da empresa brasileira na prospecção de oportunidades ao redor do mundo. Características mercadológicas identificadas no cenário econômico da Argentina também foram considerados para a entrada no país. A pesquisa contempla a teoria de Uppsala, OLI, empreendedorismo internacional e autores como Porter, Dunning, Rugman e Ghemawat que suportam e confrontam as decisões sobre a internacionalização da Klabin. Foram realizadas entrevistas com os principais executivos da empresa responsáveis pela definição do modo de entrada no país e pela gestão na Argentina encerrando-se, essa pesquisa, com a apresentação dos resultados sobre as teorias existentes para a implementação da estratégia de internacionalização.

The internationalization of the cosmetic retail industry: a history of success?

O setor de varejo foi cada vez mais global ao longo das últimas décadas, ilustrando visualmente a globalização dos negócios. Muitos varejistas estão apostando em expandir, as atividades ao nível internacional, a fim de evitar a saturação da atividade no país de origem deles (Alexander, 1990), de aumentar os lucros ou de imitar os concorrentes (Williams, 1992). Portanto, eles tornaram-se competidores globais consideráveis: eles fornecem novos produtos no mercado, além de ser mais influentes na cadeia de abastecimento global (Williams, 1992). Em relação à internacionalização do varejo, a indústria cosmética oferece com exemplos de muitas realizações bem- sucedidas. O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar o processo de internacionalização de vários varejistas globais, especializados na venda de produtos cosméticos. Mesmo que o campo de internacionalização no varejo já foi no passado o objeto de vários estudos, este trabalho visa a compreender, por meio da utilização de um estudo de caso múltiplo, a estratégia de retalhistas cosméticos que entram nos mercados internacionais. Por meio de um estudo qualitativo, a questão principal que orienta este trabalho será a de compreender se o varejo de cosméticos segue as mesmas estratégias de negócio e estratégias de marketing para se tornar global. O estudo de casos múltiplos foi escolhido a fim de comparar quatro empresas, especializadas na venda de produtos de cosmética, com atividades no exterior. Os resultados claramente exibem diferenças entre os processos de internacionalização, baseado especialmente na nacionalidade das empresas sob analise.

Growing research where economies grow: essays on strategy and international expansion of companies from emerging countries

In recent years, emerging countries have assumed an increasingly prominent position in the world economy, as growth has picked up in these countries and slowed in developed economies. Two related phenomena, among others, can be associated with this growth: emerging countries were less affected by the 2008-2009 global economic recession; and they increased their participation in foreign direct investment, both inflows and outflows. This doctoral dissertation contributes to research on firms from emerging countries through four independent papers. The first group of two papers examines firm strategy in recessionary moments and uses Brazil, one of the largest emerging countries, as setting for the investigation. Data were collected through a survey on Brazilian firms referring to the 2008-2009 global recession, and 17 hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling based on partial least squares. Paper 1 offered an integrative model linking RBV to literatures on entrepreneurship, improvisation, and flexibility to indicate the characteristics and capabilities that allow a firm to have superior performance in recessions. We found that firms that pre-recession have a propensity to recognize opportunities and improvisation capabilities for fast and creative actions have superior performance in recessions. We also found that entrepreneurial orientation and flexibility have indirect effects. Paper 2 built on business cycle literature to study which strategies - pro-cyclical or counter-cyclical – enable superior performance in recessions. We found that while most firms pro-cyclically reduce costs and investments during recessions, a counter-cyclical strategy of investing in opportunities created by changes in the environment enables superior performance. Most successful are firms with a propensity to recognize opportunities, entrepreneurial orientation to invest, and flexibility to efficiently implement these investments. The second group of two papers investigated international expansion of multinational enterprises, particularly the use of distance for their location decisions. Paper 3 proposed a conceptual framework to examine circumstances under which distance is less important for international location decisions, taking the new perspective of economic institutional distance as theoretical foundation. The framework indicated that the general preference for low-distance countries is lower: (1) when the company is state owned, rather than private owned; (2) when its internationalization motives are asset, resource, or efficiency seeking, as opposed to market seeking; and (3) when internationalization occurred after globalization and the advent of new technologies. Paper 4 compared five concurrent perspectives of distance and indicated their suitability to the study of various issues based on industry, ownership, and type, motive, and timing of internationalization. The paper also proposed that distance represents the disadvantages of host countries for international location decisions; as such, it should be used in conjunction with factors that represent host country attractiveness, or advantages as international locations. In conjunction, papers 3 and 4 provided additional, alternative explanations for the mixed empirical results of current research on distance. Moreover, the studies shed light into the discussion of differences between multinational enterprises from emerging countries versus those from advanced countries.