Framework library · International strategy

Born global strategy

A born global sells abroad from or near its founding, usually because its niche is too small in any one country and the customers in it look alike across borders. It cannot afford the slow, market-by-market build that the Uppsala model describes, so it borrows reach from channels, partners and the founders' own networks. It survives only by being strict about which markets come first and what waits.

LevelIntermediate
TimeA morning to draft; revisit every quarter as the first markets report back
Who to involveThe founders, whoever leads sales, and an investor or adviser who has built an international business before.
Also calledborn-global firm, born globals, international new venture, global start-up, early internationalisation

Use it when

  • Your customers are a narrow group spread across many countries, so no single home market is big enough.
  • You are raising money and investors want to see which markets come first and how you will reach them without offices.
  • A distributor or larger partner offers reach into several countries at once and you need to decide which to accept.
  • Enquiries arrive from many countries and the team needs a rule for which to pursue.

Avoid it when

  • Demand in your home market can sustain the company for some years. Build there first and expand step by step. The Uppsala internationalisation model describes that route.
  • The offer needs licences, field operations or heavy adaptation in each country, as a network build does. Use a country selection matrix and market entry modes for each market instead.
  • Nobody has yet paid for the product. Prove demand with a minimum viable product before planning five countries.

How to run it

  1. Define the niche across borders

    Describe the customer precisely enough to name the first fifty worldwide, and say what makes them alike in every country. If they are not alike, the niche is not global.

  2. Say why you will win it

    Technology, data, a standard the founders helped write, a team with a rare skill. Large firms and local rivals both exist; write why neither takes the niche first.

  3. Order the lead markets

    Three to five markets in order, with the reason for each: where customers cluster, where a reference win travels, where you can serve from home. Language and the team's own experience count.

  4. Borrow reach

    Name the channels and partners that put you in front of customers abroad without an office: distributors, integrators, online trials, a larger vendor's partner programme, investors' networks.

  5. Write what you will not do yet

    Markets, products and investments you are postponing, each with the trigger that would bring it forward. This box protects the cash.

  6. Review against what the markets say

    Every quarter, compare conversion, sales cycle and cost to serve by market with the plan, and reorder the lead markets if the evidence says so.

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Mistakes to avoid

  • Mistaking enquiries for demand. Interest from twenty countries is a signal to qualify, not a plan to sell in twenty.
  • Spreading a small team across too many markets at once, so that no market produces enough customers to give references.
  • Relying on one distributor for all sales abroad. If it stops selling, the international business stops. Keep at least one direct route open.
  • Leaving the paperwork until later. Contracts, tax, data protection and export rules arrive with the first foreign customer.

Where it comes from

Michael W. Rennie introduced the term in "Born global", McKinsey Quarterly, 1993 (no. 4). Benjamin Oviatt and Patricia McDougall set out a theory of the closely related international new venture ("Toward a theory of international new ventures", Journal of International Business Studies 25(1), 1994), and Gary Knight and S. Tamar Cavusgil developed the born global idea in "The born global firm: a challenge to traditional internationalization theory" (Advances in International Marketing 8, 1996) and "Innovation, organizational capabilities, and the born-global firm" (Journal of International Business Studies 35(2), 2004). Source.

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