FINDING YOUR CENTER OF GRAVITY

To avoid the cost and disruption of having to move later, it makes sense for a company establishing its first foothold in Europe to choose a location that will serve its needs over the long term. Doing so, however, requires thinking seriously about the geographic scope of your European business, as it will look five years from now, not just where it is today. We call this Finding Your Center of Gravity.

The first step to finding the optimum Center of Gravity for your business means carefully analyzing several key strategic issues that impact on your company:

• Where is my business in Europe concentrated now?
• Are my current European markets sufficient to support my planned growth over the next five years?
• If not, what additional markets do I need to penetrate to meet my five-year growth objectives?

The following example is designed to illustrate why grappling with these issues up front is so critical to establishing operations in the right place, right off the bat.

Let’s say, for example, that the current market for your product or service is now concentrated in England or in Sweden. If the UK or Scandinavian market can sustain your planned growth, then it makes perfect sense to locate your sales and marketing headquarters office or your distribution operation somewhere within these geographic markets.

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