International Firm Strategy

International Firm Strategy
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October 1, 2019
Venturing the international arena poses a lot of difficulties for any business. Several factors could unexpectedly cost the profitability, or worse, the survivability of the business itself. Nonetheless, careful planning and implementation decreases the effects of these risks and increases the businesses chances of success. One example of a company who has successfully the international arena is Spotify. Spotify Technology S.A. is a music-streaming service which started in Sweden back in 2008. As of today, it has around “232 million users, across 79 markets” (Spotify.com, n.d.). While their success might seem to be due to ‘intangibility’ of their services, it must be noted that even digital services need to comply with different rules and regulations in other countries, while also investing in promotion strategies in them. Accordingly, the author of this article believes that its success is due to its (1) global vision and (2) localization strategy.
International Growth
           Having a global vision is essential to reach a global audience. In the beginning, Spotify’s founder Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon have already visualized that the company would be a major player in the global market. Although the ‘intangibility’ of their services made their services relatively easier to access all around the world, both of the founders would have to compete with both international (i.e., iTunes) and local music (i.e., radio stations) services. 
To make sure that they would have the edge, the company conducted extensive research and experimentation about the trends in music streaming and took the risk of establishing themselves in the US from the very beginning. Although the company incurred larger costs in doing so, they were able to gain a solid ground on the country, which would make it easier for them to access international markets. It also made it easier for them to gain an advantage over the American market as compared to Deezer, which decided to enter the US market last (Lu, 2016).
           As a complement to thei...