Challenges and Opportunities
Inevitably such challenges and opportunities vary between companies and sectors but some frequently cited opportunities and challenges include:
Managing long supply chains
| Opportunities | Challenges |
|---|---|
| Access to customers in new countries | New competition for existing customers in domestic markets |
| Learning about customers in new markets | Adjusting products to local tastes and cultural peculiarities |
| Access to new, cheaper sources of finance | Global financial contagion |
| Government incentives to relocate | Costs of meeting a multitude of local/national laws and regulations |
| Access to regional trading agreements/avoidance of trade barriers | Exchange rate fluctuations |
| Economies of scale | Managing long supply chains |
| Access to new resources (e.g. cheap of skilled labor, natural resources) | New competition for local resources (e.g. more demand for labor pushing up local wage costs) |
| Cross-cultural communication e.g. language barriers, differing body language and etiquette | |
| Corporate social responsibility issues | |
| Capricious political environments/political risk/bias in favour of domestic companies |