Fast food is tricky business in China. China loves to eat, but there already is an abundance of excellent affordable street food, and competition between foreign fast food brands is intense. Yum Brands-owned Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) stands out among many others in that it has been immensely successful in the Chinese market. With more […]
In August 2017, German supermarket Edeka made a bold statement. For one day, the supermarket chain took all non-German products off the shelves. Instead of their favorite Italian pasta, Spanish tomatoes, Israeli oranges, Greek olives, Portuguese sardines, French cheeses, Japanese soy sauce, or Turkish grapes, Edeka’s customers found signs with statements such as “Things are […]
Last month, Bloomberg published a “Vulnerability Ranking” for 18 emerging markets ranging from Turkey to Taiwan. The ranking assesses these markets along four criteria – Current Account Balance, External Debt, Government Effectiveness, and Inflation. To no one’s surprise, Turkey and Argentina lead the pack in their vulnerability, while countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, Thailand, […]
Almost unnoticed to the global media, Swedish furniture giant IKEA opened its first store in India this month. With the 400,000 sq ft store, the global multinational is hoping to open the path to expansion in a market of 1.3 billion consumers that includes a growing and affluent middle class. More stores are planned for […]
When San Francisco-based US fashion retailer The Gap launched its “City T-shirt” series, it probably had high hopes that the China edition would please a vast consumer base across China. Attention did indeed come quickly, but not necessarily the kind that The Gap was hoping for. Within hours, Chinese social media users had posted photos […]
Scandinavians are definitely not prude, and they do have a sense of humor. Nonetheless, Norway – the country that’s ranked among the happiest nations globally – may not have appreciated 7-Eleven’s most recent attempt at being funny and socially responsible. In an ad campaign across Norway, 7-Eleven proclaimed “Welcome to Norway” and “Welcome to the Land […]
The 2018 Soccer World Cup will still be going on for a few weeks, and yet there’s already a big loser – Burger King. The global fast food giant just had to withdraw a recent campaign on the Russian VK social media network. In the campaign, Burger King had offered a cash prize of 3 […]
In his latest book, Pankaj Ghemawat, celebrity professor at NYU and at IESE, describes – among many other things – how Coca Cola’s early international expansion followed a completely decentralized approach. As long as no major damage was done, everything was allowed and according to Professor Ghemawat, only two rules existed, “You can’t change the formula, […]
This will be short: I haven’t posted a “Transnational Take-Over Alert” in a long time, but given Walmart’s history of failures in international markets, it seemed important to write one now. As various news outlets recently reported, Wal-Mart has doubled down on the Indian market by acquiring Flipkart, India’s largest commerce platform – an Indian […]
With almost 500 stores, India is an important foreign market to McDonald’s. Not too long ago, it was praised in India for its responsiveness to Indian tastes. After having had items such as the Maharaja Mac and the Aloo-Tikki Burger on its menus in India since the 1990s, the fast-food giant added more offerings to woo […]
There’s trouble in Austria’s market for sports equipment. Traditionally, the market has been dominated by a handful of domestic companies such as Gigasport, Hervis, and – one of the most established among them – the Intersport group. Within Intersport, which is less of a centrally owned and controlled company and more of a loosely controlled […]
In February 2018, Chinese company Meituan became the world’s fourth most valuable startup. Meituan, now valued at $30 billion, originally started as a group purchasing platform, similar to Groupon, which had its stab at the Chinese market. Yes, Groupon. Let’s turn the clock back for a moment. In mid 2011, American publication Forbes asked, “Can […]