Borderless Europe augurs well for European companies, who understand the cultural nuances, business expectations, pricing considerations of other nations within the EU, for a non-EU company with little experience of a establishing a presence in any of the European nation and conducting business successfully could be a challenge. Some considerations for entry strategy that needs company-market specific evaluation are:

Short term v/s Long term:

The perspective is that to play a best-of-breed Product player or a technology service provider, a long term strategy would contribute well to your business plan. To gain that perspective, it is important to have a good understanding of the select market segment that you would like to address as a IT product company and if you are services player – can you create a compelling reason outside cost to gain the respect of a potential European customer.

European companies look for long term cooperation, even if it means you can create or have a potential solution for a tactical problem area. Do you think alike!

Direct v/s Indirect v/s an hybrid model:

This is largely an off-shoot of your strategy and target market segment identification. Don’t go with a model in mind. Create a model for say …Benelux, DACH, Nordic. Create small, gain local levers, extent to region, cross service and eventually a stable one-Europe model with a baseline of services and products to cater larger segment.

Pilot and Go, if you have a product:

The prescription for product companies is to select a pilot site, prove, and create reference and go.

Build the eco-system, if you are a service player:

The prescription for service companies is to create the eco-system to identify opportunities, manage them, deliver to them and service them for a long time…