Latin America and The Caribbean is one of the most dynamics regions in the world having an economy of US$ 6 trillion, population of 620 million people, and an IT market estimated to be $300 Billion. The size of the Brazil’s and Mexico’s economies, the new insertion of Argentina in the world financial markets, and the growth experiencing by Chile, Colombia and Peru makes this region a very interesting one for IT vendors to participate in.
As described on our blog dated March 26th, the region brings a level of complexity that requires knowledge and experience in the various countries to be successful. In addition, the current economic slowdown has caused a recession in some countries like Brazil.
In the context of region’s opportunities and challenges, how an IT vendor should proceed to start selling in Latin America? LinkIT LATAM has written a white paper on this subject that you could download from http://linkitlatam.com/en/whitepaper/questions. Below you will find some key points of this document:
- Do not equate a Latin America strategy to responding to customers’ or partners’ business requests
- A no-go may be the correct strategy until certain key elements such as product validation, reference accounts, good analyst reports are in place
- A beachhead strategy to reduce investment and risk, and to build credibility and know-how at HQ is a good approach to consider.
- Brazil or Mexico are prime candidates for beachhead countries for some but not all IT vendors.
- Be flexible as routes-to-markets will have different requirements and cost structures, and company best practices may need to be adjusted.
- Develop business metrics to measure progress; do not limit the business metrics only to sales numbers.
Good selling!