International Marketing plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

International Marketing plan - Essay Example South African food market has been a market on the rise especially after the apartheid times dating back to 1994. McDonald's has had to adapt to the South African market in respect to its political, legal, and economic as well as the social environment. A firm wishing to operate in an international market must have the understanding that different nations exhibit different systems of operation (Kotler 1997). These systems include taxation laws, government policy, a country's inflation, interest and exchange rates, culture of the people, level of technology among others. The first consideration in this paper is the SLEPT analysis of McDonald's in South Africa. As earlier highlighted the end of apartheid in South Africa brought forth a great deal of developments in South Africa and in particular increased interest by foreign investors (Kotler 1997). In the lead was McDonald's which set its first restaurant in November 1995. The factors that have come to affect McDonald's under SLEPT analysis are legal, political, economic, technological as well as social ones. There are those factors related to language, ethnic background(s), religion of a people and values that they hold as well as perceptions. These factors are known to force firms to adopt completely different approaches to the market especially in the way the firm advertises its products. There are certain values and beliefs, societal norms and cultural orientations that the firm must put into consideration in conducting its day to day business. In the South African context, McDonald's faces a culture that is not too liberal like that of its mother country, USA. For this reason its products and their adverts must conform to the accepted norms under the African culture. There was also the perception that firms like McDonald's were established in South Africa to serve the white population (Kotler 1997). Due to the just ended apartheid regime, the black population had resented white affiliated facilities, goods and amenities. For this reason McDonald's had to take this market from a totally different perspective from that of maybe, China. The names and symbols of the products have to conform to the linguistic connotations or manifestations of South Africa. The firm in its adverts includes South African language so as to attract and make customers feel that McDonald's is part of them. Legal/political factors In all countries of the world, businesses are operated within the legislation frameworks set. In South Africa the adverts must conform to moral standards upheld in the law. Scenes that appear provocative for example nudity are outlawed as well as language use in adverts which should fall within the realms of social conformity. Failure to uphold these standards results in legal suits against a firm and as well as other harsh measures like license cancellation in more deviant cases. As highlighted earlier, the political changes that occurred in the early 1990s made McDonald's to view South Africa as a viable market (Kotler 1997). The political atmosphere has been quite stable as compared to many of its neighbours and this has enabled the firm to thrive. Corruption on the other hand has been relatively put to check which has made McDonald's and many other multinationals to have a better