Do your products have export potential?

There are several methods you can use to investigate whether your products and services have export potential. The most common is to look at your product's sales at home. If your product sells well in the domestic market, there are good chances that it will also sell well abroad. Especially if you sell the product on a market similar to the Danish one.

Another way to assess your company's export potential is by looking at the product's unique or central characteristics. If the characteristics of the product are difficult to copy, it is likely that your product can be successful abroad. A unique product is likely to have limited competition, so demand may be high.

Finally, your product may well have export potential, even if you experience declining sales at home, especially if the product was previously a sell-out, but is now losing market share to more advanced products. It is e.g. possible that other countries do not need – or afford – the latest new technology.

Before you start exporting, it is a good idea to consider the following questions, which can help clarify how ready you are to export:

• What do you want to get out of exporting?
• Does exporting agree at all with the company's other goals?
• What demands does exporting place on the company's resources, management, personnel, production capacity and financing, and how will you meet these demands?

A more thorough analysis of of the company you can find export readiness here.

To find out about your product is ready for export, you can read more here

Get help to identify your export market

Lay out an export strategy

When you are sure that both the company and the product are ready for export, you can start to lay out a strategy for your export.

An important first step in planning is to ensure that there is broad agreement in the company's management about your export goals, objectives, opportunities and limitations. A good start can be to answer the questions in the text box below. Furthermore, it is important that you also ensure that the employees who are ultimately responsible for making the export successful agree to all parts of the export plan.

There are two main objectives of your export strategy:

1. to gather facts, constraints and objectives
2. to formulate a statement of action which incorporates all these elements.

The plan includes specific goals, sets a timetable for implementation and marks milestones so that the project's success rate can be measured and used to motivate employees.

The plan should answer the following 10 questions:

1. What products are selected for export and what modifications, if any, are necessary to adapt them to the export market?
2. Which export countries are selected?
3. For each country; what does the basic customer profile look like and what marketing and distribution channels should be used to reach these customers?
4. What special challenges exist in each of the selected markets (eg competitors, cultural differences or import controls) and what strategy is used to meet them?
5. How do you price the export goods?
6. What operational steps are required and when?
7. Within what time frame is each element of the strategy implemented?
8. Which staff and company resources are allocated to export?
9. What does each element cost in time and kroner?
10. How will you evaluate your results and how are these used to adjust the strategy?

The first version of an export strategy should be simple. And doesn't need to take up more than a few pages because important market data and other elements may not be available yet. The first plan gradually generates more and more information and a greater and greater understanding of the market, product, etc. As you learn more and more about exporting in general and about your company's competitive position, the strategy becomes more and more detailed.

Download a template for your export strategy below

Export strategy template

If you want to export directly, i.e. directly to the customers, it is recommended that you prepare a fairly detailed strategy, if, on the other hand, you want to export indirectly, and use an export consultant or similar, you can settle for a simpler strategy.