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!