Setting an entry order for five new countries

The question

A software company wanted to grow outside its established markets, and had five candidate countries in view.

Any order it chose would face the same challenge: why this one first? The business wanted an order with a reason for each position, a size for each market, and a view of the tools it would be up against in each country.

Our approach

We surveyed the brand’s audience in each country, with screening set to match how people there use this kind of software, so each market was read on its own terms.

Each market was sized from the survey and calibrated against independent industry data, so no size rested on the survey alone.

A broad set of measures, from the market itself to how people work and how the brand compared with the tools they use now, rolled up into one grade per country, each shown with what made it up, so the order could survive questioning.

What the team came away with

Every country came back with a size, a grade and the reasoning behind both, brought together in an entry order with the case for each position written down.

The full report then went measure by measure across all five countries, from the people themselves to how they use software of this kind and what they would want from it next, so the team could see what each position rested on.

For each country, the team could also see the competing tools it would meet there and how people rate them.

Leadership could show why one country came before another, and question any position by going straight to the measures behind it.