Internationalization of a Health Care Organization : An Empirical Study on Gambro

Abstract: The international marketer is challenging new factors in the present globalized world. Such marketer has often to solve conflicts resulting from different laws, cultures and societies, and overcome a variety of constraints when entering or establishing foreign markets. Entering and establishing new markets is a complicated process affected by both, external and internal factors. To be successful in new markets, said marketers must formulate market entry strategy with regard to those factors. This paper was written with the purpose to investigate the relationship between relatedness of core business and business regarding the market in question, government policies and regulations, and entry strategy of companies entering the U.S. renal services market. We have carried out the exploratory research based mainly on secondary data obtained from annual reports from 1995 to 2005. The one case study on the Swedish health care company Gambro was conducted in order to formulate hypotheses, which can be proven in prospective research. The whole paper is written in the context of PSE market entry model developed by Anders Pehrsson. Based on the analysis we suggest that if the perception of barriers is low and the relatedness between core business and business regarding market in question is high, companies prefer a non-organic growth when entering the market.