Market Entry Strategy of Burberry Group PLC

Running head: MARKET ENTRY STRATEGY OF BURBERRY GROUP PLC
Market Entry Strategy of Burberry Group PLC
Student name: George Okeke
Student number – A001639411
Subject name:
Discipline: MBA
Theme: Marketing
Author note

1MARKET ENTRY STRATEGY OF BURBERRY GROUP PLC
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Project Statement...........................................................................................................2
Chapter 2: Literature Review...........................................................................................................4
Chapter 3: Research Methodology..................................................................................................9
Chapter 4: Analysis........................................................................................................................10
Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendation...............................................................................17
References:....................................................................................................................................21

2MARKET ENTRY STRATEGY OF BURBERRY GROUP PLC
Chapter 1: Project Statement
Background
The case organisation is Burberry Group PLC. The company is an iconic British luxury fashion
brand founded in 1856, the company designs, develops and sells product under the Burberry
Brand. Originally focusing on the development of outdoors attire, the brand has moved to the
high fashion market developing pattern based scarves,trench coats and other fashion
accessories.Burberry operates in Africa, Asia Pacific,Europe,Middle East,India and the
Americas. Burberry products are sold globally through its stores and online. The company is
headquartered in London,the UK and employs around 11,000 people across the world (Burberry
2016).
Project Topic
The reality of the fashion industry today is an industry that is defined by lack of connection
between the original producers of goods and the end consumers. But is has not been always this
way, in fact a hundred years ago everyone knew the name of the shoemaker, tailor, seamstress in
town. But as the distance between the production location and the purchase location has grown,
what has actually decreased is the lack of transparency and accountability with the marketing
channels and supply chains. This disconnect has had a lot of disastrous implications between the
producers and the consumers, and sort of stalled the growth of the fashion industry (Carrigan et
al,2013).

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Globalization has helped a lot of international businesses,the world is more connected and
services easily accessible that means commerce the thrives on scarcity and restriction of
knowledge has lost it value. Companies have started to realize that to succeed in the information
age you will need an intellectual edge that prevents them from being commoditized and helps
them harness the power of collaboration that exist between
communities(Wennstrom2007,p.106). The fashion industry is no exception to this change,
Burberry Group PLC has identified growth opportunities two African countries Nigeria and
Angola. Central to this plans are to expand,enhance growth and improve productivity, the
company operates only in South African and Egypt.
Industry analysts forecast that the luxury sector in Africa in 2019, will grow by a high single-
digit percentage in the medium term at constant exchange rates, driven by the continued growth
of the Nigerian and Angolan consumers. South Africa is expected to remain strong with both
tourists and locals driving luxury consumption. The outlook in Egypt continues to be uncertain.
Long term, the luxury market in Africa should benefit from evolving global demographics, rise
of aspirant middle class, affluent elite who are growing, improving macro and socio-economic
trends, strong luxury consumer travels and the continued increasing penetration of digital
commerce.
Purpose of Research
The purpose of this research is to developa market entry strategy for Burberry into Nigeria and
Angola. And in the course of this research the company’s entry approach and the modes of entry
into foreign markets was analyzed. Recommendations was made considering the company’s

4MARKET ENTRY STRATEGY OF BURBERRY GROUP PLC
operating, marketing strategyand also the political volatility, inconsistent policies and lack of
basic infrastructures that support business growth in these countries.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
The following concepts,framework and theories are related to the topic of the research.
Market concept
Waterfall approach.
Sprinkler approach
Modes of Entry into Foreign Markets.
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions.
Research Method
The research method will be a single case study, Burberry Group PLC being the unit of analysis.
The secondary data will be collected from Global Luxury Goods Reports (MarketLine Industry
Reports 2017) and journals were accessed form EBSCO host. These secondary sources will be
used to analyze the company and the opportunities.
Literature review
Developing market entry strategy

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Heightened demand and competition in both domestic and international markets often force
organisations to develop new products or find new markets for their existing products (Kharub&
Sharma 2017). Thus, organisations entering new market will have to develop a market entry
strategy,market entry is risky and sometimes difficult. Rushing a product to market without
developing appropriate entry strategy can hurt the reputation of company if buyers view the the
brand as unreliable. According to Michael Porter (1998) the greatest risk an organisation could
face is the possibility that demand analysis and forecasts are wrong and the demand is much less
than expected.
Furthermore,when deciding which market to enter, organisations will have to define its
marketing objectives and policies and it has to align with the company’s core strategy. Core
company’s strategy refers to a set of actions that its managers take to outperform the competitors
and achieve superior profitability (Kotler et al 2016).The objective of a well-crafted market entry
strategy is not only temporal competitive success and profit in the short term, but rather a long
term success and profitability that can support growth and secure the future of the
company(Porter,1998).A company’s strategy tends to evolve due to changing circumstances and
ongoing efforts to improve the strategy by the management. Therefore, a marketing entry
strategy should yield a sustainable competitive advantage and basically offer enduring edge over
rivals and also appeal and resonate with consumers (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble & Strickland
2016)