International Business Market Entry Consulting Partner

We’ll help you scale internationally

As an International Business Market Entry Partner, our international expansion consultants can help to:

  • Identify new markets
  • Prepare for internationalisation
  • Plan the right go to market strategy for startups
  • Develop products for local markets
  • Find the right people to help you grow successfully
  • Manage day-to-day international operations
International Business Market Entry Partner

International business market entry

International expansion strategies as a service for startups

strategies as a service for startups

If you’re a high-growth startup, international expansion isn’t optional; it’s the natural next step to ensure you keep growing. But how do you approach international expansion? Where do you begin? And how do you stay in control? With years of experience as an international business market entry consulting partner and a long track record of expanding businesses into international markets, Scaling Partners can help you find the right go-to-market strategy for your startup.

Because our global consulting services for market expansion are modular, you can access just the support and insight you need, keeping your costs down and ensuring your money is better spent.

Partners & Clients who've trusted us to help them grow faster

Techleap.nl logo
IMI Precision Engineering logo
IMI Precision Engineering logo
Techleap.nl logo

Expanding your business into international markets with Scaling Partners

Get it right, and there can be major rewards for any company expanding internationally. But there can be pitfalls too. We’ll help you find the startup international expansion strategy that’s right for your business. Our approach is simple and proven, and because we offer our expertise and advice as a service, you can access as much or as little as you need, when you need it.
Stage 1

Preparation

  • Company Expansion Readiness
  • Functional Gap Analysis
  • Market Identification & Selection
Stage 2

Market Entry Planning

  • Strategy Selection
  • Blueprint Creation
  • Product Localization
  • Fundraising / Exit Planning
  • Regulatory and compliance
Stage 3

Launch & Grow

  • Strategy Iteration & Validation

  • Culture & Recruitment

  • Commercial Localisation

  • Marketing

  • Product Roadmap Fine Tuning

     

Stage 3

Scale Up

  • Operational stability
  • Fine Tune International Playbooks
  • Bi-Directional Knowledge Transfer Flows
  • Local Office & Team

     

1

1.

Preparation

For every company expanding internationally, there’s a point at which thinking about it turns into actually doing it. Timing that decision is critical. The signs that show your business is ready for expansion may be there, but it’s not always easy to read them. From production capacity to current growth levels to assessing existing overseas interest, Expansion Readiness and Functional Gap Analysis helps you understand the true state of your business.

Then, to ensure you scale with your eyes wide open, Market Identification & Selection provides the data essential to deciding which market to enter.

2

2.

Market Entry Planning

Direct To Market. Licensing. Franchising. Exporting. With so many potential entry strategies for international market expansion, Strategy Selection and Blueprint Creation will help you find the right one. Product Localization will ensure you understand what refinements will be needed to ensure your product or service meets the cultural, legal and practical expectations of your new market. Fundraising will help ensure you have the financial resources to realise your ambitions, while Exit Planning will help you understand the impact potential expansion strategies will have on the future value of your company. And Regulatory & Compliance will make it easier to ensure that, from accounting to product compliance to employee law, you operate within the laws and customs of your new market.

3

3.

Launch and Grow

In all the noise and the data flying everywhere, how do you know where to focus and Iterate to reach Market Validation? How do you handle Recruitment when you don’t understand local hiring practices? How do you mesh your Culture with another country’s? And how do you adapt the Commercial, Sales and Marketing approaches that have worked for you to date in a country where approaches and expectations are different? Our experts can help.

4

4.

Scale Up

It can be all too easy to focus on expanding your small business into international markets at the expense of considering what happens once you’re embedded in those markets. Our Operational Stability module will ensure you are able to develop and mature your new market while Fine Tuning International Playbooks, and establishing solid Bi-Directional Knowledge Transfer Flows. While Local Growth will help you identify, analyse and act on growth opportunities within the new territory. We’ll support you all the way with launching a Local Office and Team on the ground.

Learn how we help clients succeed on the world stage

IMI Precision Engineering
case study
Learn why IMI’s Precision Engineering Growth Hub partnered with Scaling Partners to lead the market entry of a new product called Adaptix and steer its development and business across EMEA.
IMI Plc - Precision Engineering
Market Entry & Product Market Fit
Techleap.nl Case Study
case study
Discover how Scaling Partners partnered with Techleap’s new global expansion programme for Dutch scaleups, and delivered CEO coaching, expert sessions and complete expansion blueprints for each company
Techleap.nl Compass by Newfound
Market Research & Selection
Mobilise by Brunel Case Study
case study
Read how Scaling Partners supported the Brunel International N.V. Board to understand the potential of their Mobilise software, the business models available, the attractiveness of different markets, and ultimately to inform Brunel's potential long term investment or diversification of Mobilise
Mobilise by Brunel International N.V.
Market Discovery & Entry

Why Scaling Partners?

We are an international business consulting firm of thinkers, problem solvers and entrepreneurs. We’ve scaled startups. We’ve expanded internationally. We’ve led hugely successful IPOs. We know how to make businesses grow. We can help you.

How We Work

Done with you

Our most economical model. A low touch approach where we Analyse and Support the execution

Done for you

Our ‘Let’s Go’ Model where we take care of just about everything. We Analyse, Support, and Execute

Subscription

Our most integrated model working as a full extension to your team on open-ended or midterm projects

FAQ

The right choice hits the sweet spot between opportunity and practicality. Until relatively recently that has meant the US, Hong Kong and Singapore for UK startups, partly because they are (or act as gateways to) vast markets, partly because they have been relatively welcoming of overseas businesses, and partly because they speak English. These can still be natural starting points, although political change is making life more complex.

Of course, you may have in-depth language skills and cultural understanding that makes China, Brazil, Russia or India prime markets, although protectionism and red tape may still present barriers.

Whatever the territory, it is more important than ever to ensure you have a guide on your side who understands the landscape.

There’s no single route to internationalisation success. The go to market strategy for startups could be any of the following:

  • Licensing
  • Exporting
  • Franchising
  • Joint venture
  • Piggybacking
  • Foreign direct investment


Some offer a high degree of control and low risk (e.g. exporting), but always keep the new market at arm’s length which may stifle your potential to truly maximise opportunities there. Others (such as piggybacking) can embed your brand more deeply in a new territory, but demand a large amount of coordination and trust to penetrate the market and require you to relinquish a significant amount of control. Our market entry consulting firm can help you identify the right strategy for you.

For any business, there’s risk inherent in any international expansion. But for startups, those risks can be magnified. It can be all too easy to lose focus, devoting so much attention to the new market that you take your eye of the ball in the original one. It’s common for expanding startups to lose coherence, finding that that the spark that made a brand so special in its home territory gets lost in translation. And there are the obvious cashflow issues to international expansion, which is why identifying the right go to market strategy for your startup is so important. Scaling Partners can help you identify and mitigate the risks, so your expansion delivers on your ambitions.

As you might expect, international expansion costs vary depending on the consultant, their track record and the specific role you’re requiring of them. With market entry consultancy as a service, however, you can control the cost of expanding your business into international markets.

With Scaling Partners, you only pay for the support and expertise you need, which means every £, $ or € is more carefully targeted and more wisely spent.

What Our Customers Say

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