Marshfield Bakery: International Expansion Strategy and Challenges

This report examines Marshfield Bakery's potential international expansion, recommending China as a target market due to its high population, GDP growth, and favorable government policies. It discusses the reasons for internationalization, including increased customer base, profitability, and brand awareness. The report also identifies typical barriers such as high investment, language and cultural differences, currency rates, and foreign regulations. Finally, it evaluates implementation approaches for the internationalization process, highlighting the importance of adapting to local customs and regulations for successful expansion. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and resources for students.

Local organisation is
seeking to expand its
business internationally for
the first time.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................3
REFERENCE...................................................................................................................................3

INTRODUCTION
It is the basic aim of every company to expand their business by entering new markets
and achieve their business objectives. Their are various kind of methods which can be opted by a
company to capture large market. It is essential that the company must analyse internal and
external business environment of that country where they aim to expand their market. Marshfield
bakery is headquartered in London, UK and it sell various kind of bakery products to their
customers to fulfil their needs and wants. They recently introduce 13 new bakery products and
target the market by their new products. Their popular products are cake and rusk. The following
file covers brief overview of organisation, reason for going internationalization, recommendation
of country for expanding business. Beside this barriers to expand business internationally and
implementation approach for internationalization process.
MAIN BODY
Provide a brief overview of the chosen organisation and the rationale for going international
Company's overview-
Marshfield bakery was founded in 1984 by Paul and Lynne White. It is a family business
which manufacture bakery products which provide home made product's taste to their customers.
This a small business with few employees. They are headquartered in London, UK. They are
famous for expanding their product portfolio by launching few new bakery products every year
to gain customer satisfaction. Their customers rank them high specially for the designs of their
cakes and quality of their rusk. Hence, this is one of the basic quality of Marshfield Bakery
which help them to gain the trust of their customers. Another area of development for Marshfield
bakery is their innovation in their product portfolio. They analyse their existing marketing
conditions and recognize the needs and wants of customers and then introduce those new bakery
products which is having large demand in the market. Recently, they have introduced 13 new
products in the year 2021. they promote their brand through social media marketing where they
upload the pictures and videos of their bakery on social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter and many others.
Reason for choosing internationalization-

There are various benefits of expanding business at international level by Marshfield bakery and
few of the benefits are given below-
 Increase in total number of customers- One of the basic reason for choosing
internationalization by companies is to gain more customers and develop a strong
customer base for the company. In context of Marshfield bakery, they are having good
number of customers in UK but they need to gain more customers and for this they
expand their market and targeted to capture other nation customers by offering their
products to them.
 Increase in profitability and productivity- It another reason for company to expand
their market because by gaining more trust of customers will help them to earn more
profit and develop their productivity.
 Increasing brand awareness and brand reputation- By expanding business to other
countries, Marshfield Bakery will increase their brand awareness at global level so that
more customers will get to know about their bakery and their products and develop
interest to purchase the product. Secondly, when a company expand their market at
international level then they gain better reputation as compared to having business in
local markets.
 Advanced technological advancement- When a company expand their business and
enter the new market then they have the opportunity to use advance and modern tools and
machines for manufacturing their products and services at global level. Hence, this is also
a major reason for internationalization to use high quality of technology to produce high
quality of products.
 Increasing capability of companies- Another reason for internationalization of business
is that companies need to develop their capability at that level which will help them to
gain competitive advantage in their industry by analysing the ways defending and
attacking the competitors. Hence, internationalization of business help the companies to
develop their capability.
 Gain high talented and skilled employees- Another reason for internationalization of
companies is to hire additional talented employees in their organisation which will help
them to provide innovative ideas for better growth in the markets. Employees will also
help the company to suggest strategies for gaining competitive advantage. In context of

Marshfield bakery, they will expand their business to new country and will hire new
employees which is highly skilled and talented to provide them suggestion for
betterment.
Recommendation of country for expanding business by Marshfield bakery and the reason behind
choosing specific country
Marshfield bakery is recommended to select any Asian country like China to expand their
business. China is highly populated country where the scope of Bakery is well defined and
profitable. Customers of China prefer to have bakery products in their daily life. China is having
high GDP growth rate which id determined 7.9% in the year 2021. A high GDP growth rate
country will help the company to grow well by providing all essential resources which are
required. Secondly, rapid developing economy of China can support the Marshfield Bakery to
perform their operational activities smoothly. Further benefits of having business in China are
given below-
Favourable government policies- China is having less or no trade restrictions and they
allow FDI in their country to invest in their country. Hence, less restrictions for trading policies
of China will help Marshfield bakery to gain flexibility in their projects and gain more profit.
Low cost labours- China is the country which is having low cost labours. Labours are
easily available at China whose fee is less than UK or any other country. Hence, this will help
Marshfield bakery to haver more labours which will help them to manufacture their bakery
products and also help to reduce costs by providing them less salaries as compared to other
nations.
Skilled employees- In case China is providing labours at low cost then this country is
also having skilled and talented employees for their business. Skilled employees of China will
further help Marshfield Bakery to grow well by providing innovative ideas and better
performance for business growth.
Social factor- In context of China, their population is having high purchasing power
where they prefer to buy high quality of products for which they are ready to pay extra amount.
Hence, this is beneficial for Marshfield bakery, to gain high profit by offering good quality of
products to China's population.
Higher growth opportunities- China is having high growth opportunity because their
business policies and regulations are made in such a away which will help the companies in

China to grow well with political support. Minimal regulation of China also help them to develop
high innovative skills of entrepreneurs.
High working ethics- China is known as highly discipline country where employees
maintain a proper discipline and maintain their organisational culture effectively with their good
ethics. This is beneficial for Marshfield bakery to maintain their organisational culture by hiring
such ethical employees. Good organisational culture also help the company to focus on their
working performance.
Availability of resources- China is well known for the availability of resources in their
country. Marshfield bakery is beneficial to gain those raw materials easily in china which is used
to manufacture bakery products. Secondly, the quality is high and the prices is less for
purchasing raw material in China. This will also help them to gain more profit by expanding
their business in Chinese market.
Discuss typical barriers that will be faced as the organisation expands internationally
It is the basic aim of every organisation to expand their market to target new customers
and gain more profit. There are various kind of issues and barriers which a company has to face
during their expansion and these are given below-
High investment- Marshfield bakery has to invest high to expand their market. This is
the biggest issue of a small business that they have to arrange appropriate amount of investment
for their expansion strategies. Marshfield bakery is a family business for whom arranging huge
investment is tough. They can utilize UK's banking facilities which help UK based companies to
provide loan on low interest rate for their business development.
Language barriers- Expanding business at international level is having high risk of
unmatched languages which can cause the efficiency of employees to communicate well with
each other. In context of Marshfield bakery, if they expand their business in China then they
have to hire Chinese people and their local Chinese language is not understandable by UK
employees. Hence, this may cause lack of communication or lack of transparency by employees.
Hence, it is recommended for Marshfield bakery to set English as their common language to
communicate and those Chinese employees who are unable to communicate well in English will
be send for coaching.
Cultural differences- When the company enter new market then they can found totally
new culture for their business where employees have different ways of performing their work. In

context of Marshfield bakery, they are having different culture at UK and different culture at
China. Hence, it is essential for them to maintain their policies according to Chinese culture for
business in China and maintain proper policies for UK employees according UK culture.
Another best way to develop diversification at workplace is that they can allow both area
employees to work together. They must mix UK employees as well as Chinese employees in
their bakeries for supporting cultural diversification.
Currency rates- Currency rates of every nation is different from each other. This is a
biggest barrier for international trade. In context of Marshfield bakery, they must focus on the
fluctuating rates of UK currency as well as China currency to understand the difference and
manage their bills accordingly. It is also recommended for them to offer the price of their
product on the same rate when they traded the goods to other countries.
Foreign rules and regulations- This is also important factor for consideration in
internationalization of business. In context of Marshfield bakery, the rules and regulations of UK
is different from China's rules and regulations and it is important for a business to follow al legal
laws made by the country where they expanded their market. Hence, it is suggested for
Marshfield bakery that they must analyse all laws and rules and regulations of the nation before
expanding their business to other country. This will help them to prepare their policies before to
manage foreign rules and regulations appropriately.
Social acceptance- This is also one of the basic issue in internationalization of business
where in case the customers of a country did not accept the products and services of company
then it will provide a huge loss to the company. Hence, it is recommended for Marshfield bakery
that they must analyse the marketing condition of new country where they require to expand
their business. They can choose exporting method first where they can manufacture their
products in UK and then sell it to other countries with proper transportation system which will
not damage the items. This exporting method will help the bakery to identify whether the
customers of other country is providing positive feedback for their products and services or not.
In case they get positive feedback then they must launch their business in that country and in
case they get negative feedback then they must neglect or drop the idea to have business in that
new country.

Based on your analysis, critically evaluate a relevant implementation approach for the
internationalisation processfor the specified target market
CONCLUSION
REFERENCE
Book and journal
Healey, N. M., 2017. Beyond ‘export education’: aspiring to put students at the
heart of a university’s internationalisation strategy. Perspectives: Policy
and Practice in Higher Education, 21(4), pp.119-128.
Courtois, A., 2018. Commentary to Part IV: Institutional Identities in Flux:
Internationalisation and Elite Making in Higher Education. In Elite Education and
Internationalisation(pp. 297-305). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Lin, L., Wang, D. and Si, Y. F., 2018. The limits of Guanxi for Chinese nationals
doing business abroad: Empirical investigation into Chinese companies in
Germany. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 109(3), pp.420-433.
Wierzejski, T., Lizińska, W. and Jakubowska, D., 2020. Consumption and
internationalization: determinants for the development of the dairy market in
Poland. European Research Studies, 23(3), pp.629-644.