Multinationals know how to research customer needs in a local market and adapt their products to improve their fit. They may even cocreate product adaptations and adapt their business models with input from local customers and distributors. But as we saw with Natura, locally integrated companies forge deep relationships with customers in ways that go well beyond market feedback. By connecting with customers’ lives and working closely with local influencers and lead users, companies can create new markets or embed their products and brands into local networks. The deep, long-term commitment that local integration involves also encourages distributors to coinvest in everything from dedicated marketing to specialized logistics that helps to expand sales.
Many multinationals are not naturally positioned to enter the lifeblood of customers in emerging markets, but with creative kinds of engagement they can do so. The experience of Portuguese retailing company Jerónimo Martins SGPS S.A. (JM) in Poland illustrates the kinds of contrarian strategies that may be required to compete with locals in emerging markets. Jerónimo Martins’s principal multinational rivals — Tesco, Carrefour, Metro and Ahold — imported their international formats to Poland, betting on large stores and hypermarkets on the outskirts of major cities and leveraging their latest know-how at a time when Poland was emerging from the shadow of the Soviet Union. However, during extensive visits, Jerónimo Martins Group’s then-CEO Alexandre Soares dos Santos noticed that Poles preferred buying food and other household products frugally in frequent trips to stores close to their homes. So rather than transplanting and adapting an existing formula, he decided to build, as he put it, a “Polish retailer in the land of Polish consumers.” After buying a small Polish cash-and-carry chain in 1995, JM partnered with a local entrepreneur, and a team of Polish and Portuguese managers (who became fluent in Polish) worked together to launch Biedronka (Polish for “the busy ladybug beetle”). The no-frills stores were small, colorful, welcoming and, despite being an innovative format both for JM and Poland, perfectly at home there.
A couple of years later, when Biedronka had about 250 stores, JM bought out the partner and invested substantial resources to grow Biedronka nationally. Along with the expansion, JM launched a major local sourcing initiative, working with local suppliers to improve both quality and responsiveness, to reduce imports and “buy local” — creating even more social value.
Biedronka now has 2,600 stores and about 14% of the Polish market, making it Poland’s biggest food retailer. Customers have come to view the company as an integral part of Polish life: It has 98% brand recognition among Poles, and more than 60% of them visit Biedronka at least once every month. Deep local integration backed by global infrastructure and know-how has paid off handsomely: In 2014, Biedronka contributed two-thirds of Jerónimo Martins Group’s sales of 12.7 billion euros.
Multinationals know how to research customer needs in a local market and adapt their products to improve their fit. They may even cocreate product adaptations and adapt their business models with input from local customers and distributors. But as we saw with Natura, locally integrated companies forge deep relationships with customers in ways that go well beyond market feedback. By connecting with customers’ lives and working closely with local influencers and lead users, companies can create new markets or embed their products and brands into local networks. The deep, long-term commitment that local integration involves also encourages distributors to coinvest in everything from dedicated marketing to specialized logistics that helps to expand sales.Many multinationals are not naturally positioned to enter the lifeblood of customers in emerging markets, but with creative kinds of engagement they can do so. The experience of Portuguese retailing company Jerónimo Martins SGPS S.A. (JM) in Poland illustrates the kinds of contrarian strategies that may be required to compete with locals in emerging markets. Jerónimo Martins’s principal multinational rivals — Tesco, Carrefour, Metro and Ahold — imported their international formats to Poland, betting on large stores and hypermarkets on the outskirts of major cities and leveraging their latest know-how at a time when Poland was emerging from the shadow of the Soviet Union. However, during extensive visits, Jerónimo Martins Group’s then-CEO Alexandre Soares dos Santos noticed that Poles preferred buying food and other household products frugally in frequent trips to stores close to their homes. So rather than transplanting and adapting an existing formula, he decided to build, as he put it, a “Polish retailer in the land of Polish consumers.” After buying a small Polish cash-and-carry chain in 1995, JM partnered with a local entrepreneur, and a team of Polish and Portuguese managers (who became fluent in Polish) worked together to launch Biedronka (Polish for “the busy ladybug beetle”). The no-frills stores were small, colorful, welcoming and, despite being an innovative format both for JM and Poland, perfectly at home there.A couple of years later, when Biedronka had about 250 stores, JM bought out the partner and invested substantial resources to grow Biedronka nationally. Along with the expansion, JM launched a major local sourcing initiative, working with local suppliers to improve both quality and responsiveness, to reduce imports and “buy local” — creating even more social value.Biedronka now has 2,600 stores and about 14% of the Polish market, making it Poland’s biggest food retailer. Customers have come to view the company as an integral part of Polish life: It has 98% brand recognition among Poles, and more than 60% of them visit Biedronka at least once every month. Deep local integration backed by global infrastructure and know-how has paid off handsomely: In 2014, Biedronka contributed two-thirds of Jerónimo Martins Group’s sales of 12.7 billion euros.
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