Ten areas that decide whether entering a new market works. The full checklist is below, readable without downloading anything.
Download the checklist as a PDF
How to use this list
Entering a new market rarely fails for lack of demand. Far more often the cause is something nobody calculated before the start: the margin once an intermediary is added, the time needed for certification, the absence of anyone with hours to spare for it.
Work through the ten areas below and tick the ones you cannot answer yet. Each is set out in three steps: what you need to know, what the warning sign is and what to do about it.
The list works in both directions: for a Polish company going abroad and for a foreign company entering Poland.
01. Fit between your offer and the target market
What you need to know: Whether the problem your product solves exists in that market in the same form and at the same scale as at home.
Warning sign: Moving the offer across unchanged, assuming that because it works here it will work there.
What to do about it: Find out who solves that problem in the target market today and how you differ. If you cannot describe the difference, you do not yet have an advantage.
02. Price and margin on the full chain
What you need to know: The end price after transport, duty, taxes, the intermediary’s margin and the cost of local support, in local currency.
Warning sign: A calculation based on the domestic list price, with no distributor margin and no cost of service on the ground.
What to do about it: Work out the margin on the real chain. Many entries fail not on demand but because nothing is left once the links are added.
03. Regulation, standards and certification
What you need to know: Which approvals, certificates and standards apply to your product or service category.
Warning sign: Assuming a domestic certificate is enough. No view of the time and cost of obtaining local approvals.
What to do about it: Establish the list of required documents and how long they take before you sign anything with a partner. This is often the bottleneck for the whole project.
04. Local competition
What you need to know: Who serves these customers today, for how long, and why they would change supplier.
Warning sign: No names. Competition described in general terms, without specific companies and their shares.
What to do about it: Name the five largest players and write one sentence on how you differ from each. If that is hard, go back to the first point.
05. Entry model
What you need to know: Whether you enter through direct sales, an agent, a distributor, your own company or the acquisition of a local business.
Warning sign: A model chosen because of the first opportunity that appeared, rather than an analysis of cost, speed and control.
What to do about it: Set the models side by side: entry cost, time to first revenue, control over the end customer, and how easily you can withdraw.
06. Materials, language and how you sell
What you need to know: Whether you have materials in the local language and whether your sales conversation fits local habits.
Warning sign: Machine-translated materials. A pitch and sales cycle copied from the home market.
What to do about it: Prepare materials in the market’s language and have someone who works there check them. In B2B a first impression rarely gets a second chance.
07. Operational capacity and after-sales
What you need to know: Whether you can deliver, service and invoice an order from the new market without disrupting current business.
Warning sign: A declaration of readiness without calculating capacity, delivery times and handling complaints at a distance.
What to do about it: Plan after-sales support before the first order. A failed first delivery closes a market for years.
08. People and management time
What you need to know: Who will run the project on your side and how many hours a week they genuinely have for it.
Warning sign: The project added to someone who already has no spare hours. No single owner of the subject.
What to do about it: Appoint one person responsible and take some of their existing work away. Expansion run after hours does not happen.
09. Trade mark, IP and contracts
What you need to know: Whether your trade mark is protected in the target market and how rights are secured in the partner agreement.
Warning sign: Entering without registering the mark. A distributor agreement with nothing on termination or on who owns the customer base.
What to do about it: Register the mark before you start selling and agree in the contract what happens to the customers if you and the partner separate.
10. Budget, horizon and stop criteria
What you need to know: How much you are prepared to spend, over how many months, and how you will know the project should stop.
Warning sign: A budget with no horizon, or a horizon with no criteria. The decision to continue taken emotionally.
What to do about it: Set the budget, the review date and three measurable conditions for continuing, up front. The most expensive projects are the ones nobody ever decided to stop.
What next
If more than three areas are left unticked, start with market validation rather than with first conversations with partners. Validation takes four to six weeks and ends with a recommended entry model, or a recommendation not to enter.
Our market entry service is described here, and the terms of working together on how we work.
The first conversation takes 30 to 45 minutes and is free of charge. Write to us or book a time in the calendar.