Marketing Strategy Model for International Expansion: A Case of Thai SMEs

Abstract

           The objectives of this research were 1). to study marketing strategy model for SMEs business expansion to foreign countries 2). to study factors influencing marketing strategy model for SMEs business expansion to foreign countries and 3). to create marketing strategy model for SMEs business expansion to foreign countries. Survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 400 Thai SME entrepreneurs who employed not more than 200 employees. The research employed descriptive statistics, One-way ANOVA, and multiple regression to analyze data and to test hypothesis.

           The results from this research found that management process including length of time in production process had highest impact on business expansion to foreign countries, for marketing strategy aspect, the results found that by making products or services different from competitors in the world market had highest impact on business expansion to foreign countries, for external environment factors, the results found that official language of business partner country had highest impact on business expansion to foreign countries. For entrepreneur characteristics, the results found that entrepreneur’s knowledge and skills of financial management had highest impact on business expansion to foreign countries. Finally, the hypothesis test results found that the SME’s characteristics, marketing strategy, business management process, external environment factors, and entrepreneur’s characteristics had influences on the success of Thai SMEs in order to expand business to the foreign countries at statically significant level 0.05