DQ 1
The assessment of the attractiveness of a foreign country for suitability in supporting foreign trade is vital to marketers. Marketers are committed to ensuring they make viable decisions when venturing into foreign markets (Tracy, 2014). The paper identifies, discusses the approaches used by managers in assessing a country's attractiveness. It also identifies and describes the screening process used to conduct the assessment.
The approaches used by the board in assessing the attractiveness of a country are numerous. Quantitative multi-criteria decision-making methods are suitable for performing the assessment. Additionally, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) founded by Satty is also available for use in the assessment process. The paper discusses the two approaches.
Quantitative multi-criteria decision-making methods are suitable for use in situations where there are so many factors affecting the marketing decision. The technique is best for use in selecting the best alternatives among a number of countries. The second approach AHP is suitable for handling the decision atmosphere where several subjective judgments based on the nature of foreign countries are inherent (Kotabe, 2014). The approach provides a systematic technique for performing an evaluation of the significance of each criterion in relation to other criteria in a hierarchical manner.
The general steps involved in the approaches inculcate goal programming. Through goal programming, the evaluation of multiple competing factors elements of attraction in each foreign country is possible (Tinniswood, 2012). First, marketers identify the criteria for evaluation based on the opinions and facts available such as political stability, foreign policies, and production costs. Secondly, marketers assign weights to each criterion based on the importance to each country. Thirdly, the countries are ranked based on each criterion. Finally, marketers sum-up the weights assigned for each criterion under each country. The country exhibiting the highest aggregate sum is the most attractive for marketers. The approach proves significant as it assists the marketers in the identification of the most potential business sites.
References
Kotabe, M. (2014). International marketing (4th Asia-Pacific ed.). Milton, Qld.: John Wiley and Sons Australia.
Tinniswood, P. (2012). Marketing decisions. Harlow: Longman.
Tracy, B. (2014). Marketing. New York: AMACOM
