THE ART OF
BEING LOCAL
WORLDWIDE
Fail in foreign trade: eleven sure ways to burn money
Abroad, medium-sized companies that are used to success are not always champions. Peter Anterist, CEO of the global trust company InterGest, describes the "eleven most popular ways to burn money abroad" - logging roads that should be avoided in times of difficult markets. In Anterist's examples, nothing is invented and nothing is gratuitously satirised. Forty years of InterGest practice in accompanying German companies abroad show: It is not entrepreneurial negligence that leads to the blind alleys described. Rather, it is usually success at home that leads to lonely and unquestioned decisions for foreign business.
Why do successful Mittelstand companies fail at starting a business abroad?
The most uncomfortable truth about starting a business abroad: the usual culprit is success at home. Companies that have won in the German market for years often decide on foreign ventures alone and unchecked. Assumptions that hold at home stop working in a different market.
"Fail in Foreign Trade" is a field guide to starting a business abroad, built from real projects. Anterist describes eleven patterns that InterGest has watched repeat over decades. Every case is based on real events; people and products are anonymised. The book is published by local global. Individual case studies have also been featured by the business magazine Global Business Magazine and published as a series on the local global portal.
Who is behind the guide tostarting a business abroad?
Behind the guide to starting a business abroad stands a practitioner. Prof. Peter Anterist is a lawyer and a visiting professor at CUFE University in Beijing. He has led InterGest as its second-generation head since 2001. His father, Heinz Anterist, founded the company in 1972 in Saarguemines, France. For InterGest's 50th anniversary, the local global portal interviewed Anterist about internationalisation in the "InterGest 50 Years" interview. More on the company's history is available under About InterGest.
Since 1972.
50+ countries. 750 employees. 1,700 companies supported.
When do you start?