A case study of a small Swedish firm and their access to the State of California

In today’s pattern of the globalization process, international business is not limited to only large corporations. Small- and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, are also more frequently targeting foreign markets in order to expand their respective businesses and to increase sales and profits. Targeting a new market with a new product is not without its difficulties, however, and comes with its own set of challenges and difficulties, even more so for SMEs due to its limited resources. A small business situated in Gothenburg, Sweden, is currently faced with this exact problem, i.e. how to enter a new market and commercialize a new product. Drawing upon various market research frameworks, this paper seeks to investigate and analyze the Californian glazing market in order to propose a suitable entry mode strategy for this company’s product. This paper also presents a market research framework for the SME that can be used to evaluate future markets, and given the findings, provide implications for the choice of entry strategy for these markets.MSc in Innovation and Industrial Managemen