They later came to discover that Australia and Vietnam were as
different as Singapore and South Korea. And that each country had
specific cultural differences, and some even had contentious histories
with their neighbors.
The Pacific Rim might be a geographic region or a collection of
countries, but it should never be considered as one sales territory and
treated as a homogeneous marketing audience.
Another “absolute” I often hear about is the terribly long sales cycles
for automation projects—5 to 10 years to research, specify, buy,
deliver, install, train and operate!
So it was with great pleasure last week that I met Eddie Lee, Senior
Manager, Marketing for Moxa, makers of device networking products.
Eddie confirmed my beliefs about global marketing, and turned my
pre-conceived notions about sales cycle upside down!
Eddie handles the Americas, so I asked him how marketing to the U.S. compared to marketing to Central and South America.
He was quick to point out that Argentina is very different from Brazil
and each country throughout the Americas is looked at as its own
market, with different opportunities due to political stability and
economic promise. Another major difference is that while most Central
and South American countries can be covered by someone fluent in
Spanish, Brazil adds the extra twist by having its 200 million
inhabitants speaking Portuguese.
“Brazil is hot right now,” Eddie told me, “with getting both the World Cup in June of 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016.”
So Brazil is undertaking massive projects to update communications and
transportation infrastructure and automation is key. Eddie also
mentioned how thrilled Brazilian engineers are to be working with U.S.
suppliers. “We can have a meeting at 8:00 at night and 20 engineers
will be at the company to meet with us!”
Global opportunities abound for automation. And some of these projects are on a fast track!
Jim Chrzan
Publisher
