Preparing to enter a new market

The customers are different. The competition is different. So are the channels, the prices and the habits. Sometimes even the reason a customer chooses a product is different.

Why would a customer in that market choose us?

Croatia is a small market. Entering a market of 60 or 80 million people therefore demands a completely different commitment of resources. Local people. Marketing. Stock. Travel. Trade fairs. Certification. Product adaptation. Working capital. And ultimately the management time the project will absorb. All of that quickly becomes serious money.

For a large American or Chinese company, misjudging an entry into Croatia can be a relatively small experiment. For a Croatian SME, misjudging a large foreign market can hit the result hard and tie up capital and people for years. That is not a reason not to go. Quite the opposite. It is a reason to invest far more in preparation than in trial and error.

An entry strategy is built on that information. Not as a document confirming what has already been decided. But as a set of assumptions still to be proven.

Because a good product and a good idea are not worth much if it is unclear how the product will actually reach the customer. Direct sales? A distributor? An agent? Your own local team? A partner? E-commerce? Acquiring an existing company?

In FMCG a distributor can secure physical availability, but someone still has to win the position with the retailer and create demand. A good distributor can certainly help, but will never be as committed to it as the brand owner. In B2B, local references, technical service and long-standing relationships with a few large customers can be decisive. In which case a distributor may not be needed at all.

RTM is not a decision about the logistics chain. It is the answer to how the company will actually do business in the new market.

A foreign company wanting to enter Croatia faces the same problem; only the risk balance is different. Croatia is a small market. That does not automatically make it a simple one. Here too you have to understand local customers, channels, competition and price positions, and choose the right portfolio and RTM model.

Entering with the whole portfolio is not the same as entering with a few carefully chosen products. Expecting a distributor to distribute is not the same as expecting them to develop the market. And going national immediately is not the same as first proving the model with a limited set of customers and channels. The size of the market changes the size of the risk. It does not change the logic of good preparation.

Research can give you a sound estimate. But only the market gives you the answer. So it is smarter to test the key assumptions first.

If the market confirms the assumptions, you invest further. If it does not, the strategy changes while the mistake is still small. It is far cheaper to change the model after a good pilot than after two years of investment. Only after testing does the strategy become a real entry plan.

That is the other, better side of the risk. Once a Croatian company proves it can successfully enter one large foreign market, it is no longer limited by the size of Croatia. It gains new experience. New references. New customers. And, perhaps most importantly, the ability to repeat the same process in the next market. Internationalisation then stops being a one-off export deal. It becomes a new capability of the company.

Connect market potential, the choice of customers and products, the competitive position, the entry strategy, the RTM model, the resources required and the financial risk. Then test the key assumptions before committing serious investment.

A large market can open a completely new level of growth. Which is exactly why mistakes there should not be paid for if they can be checked before they become expensive.