Required Adaptation for a Mail-order Company Entering a Foreign Country

Abstract: There is not much research about the mail-order business concerning mail-order businesses that are focusing on supplying public administrations with office equipment. Most literature is based on studies within the business-to-consumer market, which become a negative aspect since we have focused our study on the business-to-business market. Consequently, the secondary data has been complemented by an exploratory research in Sweden to gain more knowledge about organizational structure within the field of public administrations and about the mail-order companies focusing on the business-to-business market. The knowledge gained has contributed to the development of our initial adaptation model, which tries to explain what adaptations might be required when entering a foreign market. After our qualitative study in Denmark some modifications of the initial model were required since two essential aspects were missing. The modified adaptation model consists of three parts, factors a company cannot influence, variables a company can influence and a semi-influencable variable. By testing the model in practice we found that it is applicable and that it gives a concrete result which a company can use in its decision-making process. In addition we found that this model, without further modifications, is only applicable when testing it on an adjacent country similar to the company’s country of origin. Certain variables in the model are without relevance when testing it on a country at a further distance and with fewer similarities.