Five simple steps to start an incremental presence in Romania

I built a simple methodology that I tested for 15 years and proved to be a success. Of course not all business can embrace the same timeline but, strategically speaking, those are the safety steps.

The first step is to contact a trusted local consultant/representative.

Second is Induction. It takes approximately two weeks in which the goals are for the representative to understand the governance model, learn about products and services, existing customers, policies, and group mechanisms, and assess the team.

After induction, a lot of initiatives might appear in the fast go-to-market solutions like:

• Rollout possibilities,
• Up-sale,
• Cross-sale.

After that, together with the consultant and Marketing, you should try to fix the target markets/niches for the short run. For each niche, you should work with the consultant and marketing to select the right products and services that you can address the market with, segment the audience, and produce messages and materials adapted to the different verticals and audiences.

The consultant can do undercover research on competition, understanding who the competition is, what are the differentiators and where are the tariffs in the local market.

You may need to put together a calendar of Local Exhibitions, Online Conferences , and Professional Associations events. You need to show presence.

If you sponsor local events in professional association congregations, you may have the chance to send messages at the CEO level, customized and focused ones.

It is important to have a complex look at the existing customer’s value chain, for example, clients and suppliers of the existing customers may share processes that are outsourced to you and/or may value a solution that can be integrated with a synergetic local partner.

One of the most important things to do is to start considering synergies with other companies, look for channel partners that have a complementary portfolio and same mind-set, look for strategic alliances.

After a couple of months you should be able to have a Marketing Plan, telling you:

• What to sale
• To Whom
• When to sale
• The price

Based on this plan you can start  selling with a small team that was recruited in the meantime.

At this moment you are practically owning a Representative Office in Romania and start selling with a minimum investment. You are now having Sales in Romania, Delivery, Implementation, and Support from Abroad.

We can estimate a first Quarter of planning, a second quarter of sales and, after a half year, when there is already a solid pipeline and maybe the first contracts, you can plan for phase three: End to End local presence.

Now, you can start developing Implementation and Support Capabilities, and also to evaluate the potential for Distribution Channels and Local Partnerships.

To summarize you can expect to have:

1.  A solid Marketing plan at the end of the first quarter, including a pool of candidates for the sales team.
2.  Start selling in a Representative Office logic in the second Quarter. Start recruiting the Implementation team.
3.  Deliver locally in the third Quarter. Start recruiting for local support.
4.  Work as a local Company, BAU. From the fourth Quarter. Now you can start maximizing profit, transferring 100% of the sales, implementation, and support effort in Romania.
5.  Fifth Quarter may be the time to start maximizing profit in your home market by transferring implementation and support in Romania.

That is a very simplistic approach to localising a product company in Romania. Five steps, Five Quarters.