Opportunities and Challenges in Emerging markets : A case study of two multinational companies in India

Sammanfattning: The previous research, in the internationalization area, indicates that there are both opportunities and challenges when companies operate abroad. By using a SLEPT analysis model, which studies the effect from the countries’ social/cultural, legal, economic, political and technological environments and their effects, it makes the opportunities and challenges more depletive. This makes it easier for companies, which are operating in a foreign country, to handle the situation and therefore, saves both time and money for the companies. The purpose of this study is to present a more conspicuous representation of the opportunities and challenges that companies in an industrial market have to face, during their operation in an emerging market. To gather the necessary information a multiple case study was implemented with three Swedish companies, who all are within the business to business (B2B) area. This study was conducted by interviewing the case companies, which are all established in India. These companies are Bufab AB and two from the Volvo Group (Volvo 3P and Volvo Powertrain). This study demonstrates that the main opportunities are the Indian population, highly educated people, the complaisant government and the fact that it is a low cost market. The challenges that these case companies had to deal with are lack of experience, the law and tariff system is difficult to understand, the laws change frequently, the economic development is rapid and the infrastructure is poor.