Towards a Strategy to Address the Brazilian Marketplace: The Romonet Case by Sofia Seruca Bravo Internship Report of Master in Marketing Supervised by Professor Doutor Nuno Moutinho 2015 Biographical summary Sofia Seruca Bravo was born in Porto at the 25th of February, 1991. She graduated in Business Administration at the University of Porto School of Economics and Business (FEP), in July 2012. From September until December 2012 she has done a marketing internship at Casa da Música in Porto. Subsequently, from February 2013, she has also done a one year internship in the commercial area of Banco Popular in Porto. In September 2013 she enrolled the Master in Marketing at University of Porto School of Economics and Business (FEP). From February 2015 until June 2015, she did the Master’s curricular internship at Romonet Ltd, in London. i Acknowledgements My first acknowledgments are for my supervisor, Professor Nuno Moutinho, for his constructive criticism and valuable guidance during the course of the work. I am also grateful to Professor Raquel Meneses for her very valuable suggestions. I would also like to thank in a special way my supervisor at Romonet, Dr. David Josuha, for his valuable support and guidance as well as to Dr. Zahl Limbuwala, CEO of Romonet, who always tried to ensure that I had everything that I needed to accomplish the internship and the report. Also, many thanks to all my colleagues of Romonet and, in particular, to Salome, for their support, friendship and availability during my internship at the company. I am also grateful to my professors of FEP for all the knowledge and support they gave me during the Master in Marketing, which helped me to develop my hard and soft skills and to be prepared for the challenges of the work market. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends, especially my grandparents and parents, who gave me a strong support and guidance during my life and academic path. ii Abstract Changes in the global business environment have substantially reduced barriers to international trade, making global markets accessible to even the youngest and smallest firms. This has created conditions for the emergence and proliferation of born globals, often defined as firms that enter multiple foreign markets at, or soon after, inception. and which have become increasingly important to both emerging and developed economies. This is the case of the Romonet company, a UK based software company which has developed an innovative software solution to monitor the performance of Data Centers & IT operators. The work here described was based on the author’s curricular internship of 5 months at Romonet, developed in the context of the Master in Marketing. This project aimed to design a marketing and sales strategy plan for Romonet to enter successfully in Brazil. To accurately develop this strategy, a literature survey was performed focusing on the born global firms’ phenomenon, the drivers for their early internationalization, as well as the entry mode options for companies entering in new markets. The information obtained from the literature review and the market research of Brazil was merged, crossed and enriched with the information collected from a number of different sources, allowing the confrontation between theory and practice and the insights needed to build a suitable and realistic marketing and sales strategy for Romonet entrance in Brazil. Besides the final outcomes to the company, the internationalization case described in this report can constitute a valuable example for the literature regarding the study of the born globals’ internationalization process, that still remains to be fully explained. The work herein described can also constitute a valuable contribution and provide useful guidance and insights for other companies facing the some type of challenges. iii Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Objectives ........................................................................................................... 3 1.1.1 Objectives of the internship ........................................................................ 3 1.1.2 Romonet’s objectives of internationalization to Brazil .............................. 4 1.2 Report outline ..................................................................................................... 4 2. Literature review ....................................................................................................... 6 2.1 Born Globals ...................................................................................................... 6 2.2 Theories of internationalization ......................................................................... 8 2.2.1 Uppsala Model (U-Model) ......................................................................... 9 2.2.2 Theories focused on resources .................................................................. 10 2.2.3 Network Model ......................................................................................... 12 2.2.4 International entrepeunership ................................................................... 14 2.2.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 16 2.2.6 The Romonet case ..................................................................................... 16 2.3 Entry mode strategies ....................................................................................... 18 2.3.1 Partnering and Strategic alliances ............................................................. 19 3. Methodology ........................................................................................................... 21 4. Designing the international strategy ........................................................................ 25 4.1 External analysis .............................................................................................. 25 4.1.1 Industry analysis ....................................................................................... 25 4.1.2 Market analysis ......................................................................................... 32 4.2 Competition ...................................................................................................... 41 4.3 Internal analysis ............................................................................................... 41 4.3.1 VRIO analysis ........................................................................................... 42 4.4 SWOT Analysis ............................................................................................... 51 4.4.1 Strategy Implementation ........................................................................... 57 4.4.2 Strategy Matrix ......................................................................................... 59 4.4.3 Strategy importance .................................................................................. 61 4.4.4 Description of the strategies ..................................................................... 61 4.5 Entry mode strategy ......................................................................................... 63 4.5.1 Romonet Entry Mode Strategy ................................................................. 63 4.6 Targeting .......................................................................................................... 68 4.7 Positioning ....................................................................................................... 68 4.8 Marketing-Mix ................................................................................................. 70 iv 4.8.1 Product ...................................................................................................... 70 4.8.2 Price .......................................................................................................... 71 4.8.3 Placement .................................................................................................. 73 4.8.4 Promotion ................................................................................................. 75 4.8.5 People ....................................................................................................... 81 4.8.6 Process ...................................................................................................... 83 4.8.7 Physical Evidence ..................................................................................... 87 4.9 Financial Analysis ............................................................................................ 88 4.10 Action Plan ....................................................................................................... 89 4.11 Control ............................................................................................................. 90 5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 92 5.1 Summary of the work ....................................................................................... 92 5.2 Assessment of the work contributions ............................................................. 93 5.3 Lessons learned ................................................................................................ 95 5.4 Limitations and further work ........................................................................... 96