15. Foreign direct investment (FDI)
• For some reason, one noticeable feature of FDI flows is that their share in
total inflows is higher in countries where the quality of institutions is
lower.
• One indisputable fact is that developed countries are both the largest
recipients and sources of FDI.
• the countries that are successful in attracting FDI have certain traits:
political and macroeconomic stability and structural reforms
15
16. • the countries that are successful in attracting FDI have certain traits:
political and macroeconomic stability and structural reforms
• Corruption has a negative impact on FDI. From the ethics standpoint,
foreign investors generally avoid corruption because it is morally wrong
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19. Exporting
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• Exporting is a strategy in which a company, without any marketing or production
organization overseas, exports a product from its home base.
• product is fundamentally the same as the one marketed in the home market.
• The main advantage of an exporting strategy is the ease in implementing the strategy.
• Risks are minimal because the company simply exports its excess production capacity
when it receives orders from abroad.
• The exporting strategy functions poorly when the company’s home-country currency is
strong.
20. 20
HOME COUNTRY HOST COUNTRY
Export of Goods
MNE
Revenues
Customers
Ruth V. Aguilera
21. Licensing
• Licensing is an agreement that permits a foreign company to use
industrial property (i.e., patents, trademarks, and copyrights), technical
know-how and skills (e.g., feasibility studies, manuals, technical advice),
architectural and engineering designs, or any combination of these in a
foreign market.
• Essentially, a licensor allows a foreign company to manufacture a product
for sale in the licensee’s country and sometimes in other specified
markets.
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23. Licensing Agreement
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Advantages
• Low initial investment
• Avoids trade barriers
• Potential for utilizing
location economies
• Access to local knowledge
• Easier to respond to
customer needs
Disadvantages
• Lack of control over
operations
• Difficulty in transferring
tacit knowledge
• Negotiation of a transfer price
• Monitoring transfer outcome
• Potential for creating a
competitor
24. Management contract
• In some cases, government pressure and restrictions force a foreign
company either to sell its domestic operations or to relinquish control. In
other cases, the company may prefer not to have any FDI.
• One way to generate revenue is to sign a management contract with the
government or the new owner in order to manage the business for the
new owner
• Management contracts may be used as a sound strategy for entering a
market with a minimum investment and minimum political risks.
• Accor SA, a French hotel giant, for example, has purchased a large stake
in Zenith Hotels International. Zenith itself manages nine hotels in China
and one hotel in Thailand without owning them, and most of its hotels do
not carry the Zenith name.
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26. Joint venture
• A joint venture is simply a partnership at corporate level, and it can be
domestic or international. For the discussion here, an international joint
venture is one in which the partners are from more than one country.
• One recent joint venture involves Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and
Fujitsu to replace a previous joint venture (Fujitsu–AMD Semiconductor
Ltd.).
• There are two separate overseas investment processes that describe how
joint ventures tend to evolve:
1. the “natural,” nonpolitical investment process
2. The second investment process occurs when the local firm’s “political”
leverage, through government persuasion, halts or reverses the “natural”
economic process
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28. Joint venture
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Advantages
• Access to partner’s local
knowledge
• Reduction of concern about
overpayment
• Both parties have some
performance incentives
• Significant control over
operation
Disadvantages
• Potential loss of
proprietary knowledge
• Potential conflicts
between partners
• Neither partner has full
performance incentive
• Neither partner has full
control
29. Manufacturing
• The manufacturing process may be employed as a strategy involving all
or some manufacturing in a foreign country.
• One kind of manufacturing procedure, known as sourcing, involves
manufacturing operations in a host country, not so much to sell there but
for the purpose of exporting from that company’s home country to other
countries.
• another manufacturing objective: the goal of a manufacturing strategy
may be to set up a production base inside a target market country as a
means of invading it. There are several variations on this method,
ranging from complete manufacturing to contract manufacturing (with a
local manufacturer) and partial manufacturing.
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30. 30
Host country Reasons
• job creation
• Technology
• management expertise
• access to export markets
MNEs Reasons
• gaining access either to
raw materials or to take
advantage of resources
• take advantage of lower
labor costs or other
abundant factors of
production (e.g., labor,
energy, and other inputs)
31. Assembly operations
• An assembly operation is a variation on a manufacturing strategy.
• According to the U.S. Customs Service, “Assembly means the fitting or
joining together of fabricated components.”
• In this strategy, parts or components are produced in various countries in
order to gain each country’s comparative advantage. Capital-intensive
parts may be produced in advanced nations, and labor-intensive
assemblies may be produced in a less developed country, where labor is
abundant and labor costs are low
• In general, a host country objects to the establishment of a screwdriver
assembly that merely assembles imported parts. If a product’s local
content is less than half of all the components used, the product may be
viewed as imported, subjected to tariffs and quota restrictions.
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33. Turnkey operations
• A turnkey operation is an agreement by the seller to supply a buyer with
a facility fully equipped and ready to be operated by the buyer’s
personnel, who will be trained by the seller.
• the term is usually associated with giant projects that are sold to
governments or government-run companies.
• Large-scale plants requiring technology and large-scale construction
processes unavailable in local markets commonly use this strategy.
• Such large-scale projects include building steel mills; cement, fertilizer,
and chemical plants; and those related to such advanced technologies as
telecommunications.
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34. Acquisition
• When a manufacturer wants to enter a foreign market rapidly and yet
retain maximum control, direct investment through acquisition should be
considered.
• The reasons for wanting to acquire a foreign company include:
1. product/geographical diversification
2. acquisition of expertise (technology, marketing, and management)
3. and rapid entry
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36. Acquisition
36
Advantages
• Access to target’s local
knowledge
• Control over foreign
operations
• Control over own
technology
Disadvantages
• Uncertainty about target’s
value
• Difficulty in “absorbing”
acquired assets
• Infeasible if local market
for corporate control is
underdeveloped
37. How to make a successful acquisition
• Jack Welch, the highly successful and former CEO of General Electric, lists the
“six sins” of mergers and acquisitions:
1. First, any “merger of equals” sounds good in theory but is a mess in practice.
2. Second, the cultural fit of the two partners is as important as (if not more so than) a
strategic fit.
3. Third, run away from a “reverse hostage” situation when an acquirer makes so many
concessions to the point that the acquired company will be in charge.
4. Fourth, “be not afraid” as boldness is necessary and sensible for integration.
5. Fifth, avoid the “conqueror syndrome” by installing own people everywhere in the new
territory.
6. Sixth and finally, “don’t pay too much.”
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Source: Jack Welch and Suzy Welch, “The Six Sins of M&A,” Business Week, October 23, 2006, 148.
38. Green Field Entry
• A government generally welcomes foreign investment that starts up a
new enterprise (called a greenfield enterprise), since that investment
increases employment and enlarges the tax base.
• A special case of acquisition is the brownfield entry mode. This mode
occurs when an investor’s transferred resources dominate over those
provided by an acquired firm.
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40. Strategic alliances
• There is no clear and precise definition of strategic alliance. There is no
one way to form a strategic alliance. An alliance may be in the areas of
production, distribution, marketing, and research and development.
• Strategic alliances may be the result of mergers, acquisitions, joint
ventures, and licensing agreements.
• Joint ventures are naturally strategic alliances, but not all strategic
alliances are joint ventures.
• Unlike joint ventures which require two or more partners to create a
separate entity, a strategic alliance does not necessarily require a new
legal entity.
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41. Analysis of entry strategies
• To enter a foreign market, a manufacturer has a number of strategic
options, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.
• Many companies employ multiple strategies.
• IBM has employed strategies ranging from licensing, joint ventures, and
strategic alliances on the one hand to local manufacturing and
subsidiaries on the other hand
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42. Analysis of entry strategies
• There are a number of characteristics that determine the appropriateness
of entry strategies, and many variables affect which strategy is chosen.
These characteristics include:
1. political risks,
2. regulations,
3. type of country,
4. type of product,
5. and other competitive and market characteristics.
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43. Free trade zones (FTZs)
• An FTZ is a secured domestic area in international commerce, considered
to be legally outside a country’s customs territory.
• It is an area designated by a government for the duty-free entry of goods.
• It is also a location where imports can be handled with few regulations,
and little or no customs duties and excise taxes are collected
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44. Variations among FTZs
1. freeports,
2. tariff-free trade zones,
3. airport duty-free arcades,
4. export-processing zones,
5. and other foreign grade zones.
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45. • China has set up special economic zones (SEZs) for manufacturing,
banking, exporting and importing, and foreign investment.
• Some countries, for political reasons, are not able to open up their
economies completely. Instead they have set up export-processing zones, a
special type of FTZ, in order to attract foreign capital for manufacturing
for export.
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46. The benefits of FTZ
• country-specific in the sense that some countries offer superior facilities
for lower costs (e.g., utilities and telecommunications).
• Other benefits are zone-specific in that certain zones may be better than
others within the same country in terms of tax and transportation
facilities.
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