Advantages and disadvantages of trade mission
Trade missions can have certain positive effects, such as facilitating market research,
providing wider and deeper contact coverage, devoting more effort to market
investigation. There are some more advantages of participating in trade missions. For
example, gaining access to high-level business and government officials, providing
important educational experience for inexperienced exporters/receiving important
educational experience from experienced exporters. While taking part in trade mission you
enhance your domestic competitiveness, increase sales and profits, reduce dependence on
existing markets, extend sales potential of existing products, sell excess production
capacity, maintain cost competitiveness in your domestic market. The results of
participating in trade missions are: it will generate growth of the firm’s international
network; offer a better understanding of opportunities in the target country.
But there are also some disadvantages to keep in mind. The company may need to wait for
long-term gains; hire staff to launch international trading; modify the potential product;
develop new promotional material; incur added administrative costs. You may need to
dedicate personnel for traveling, wait long for payments, apply for additional financing,
and deal with special licenses and regulations.
(Sources: https://www.scu.edu/mobi/business-courses/business-expansion/session-11-
global-expansion/ ;
http://essay.utwente.nl/63014/1/Master_Thesis_BA_Nikolai_Oudalov.pdf )
Trade missions can have certain positive effects, such as facilitating market research,
providing wider and deeper contact coverage, devoting more effort to market
investigation. There are some more advantages of participating in trade missions. For
example, gaining access to high-level business and government officials, providing
important educational experience for inexperienced exporters/receiving important
educational experience from experienced exporters. While taking part in trade mission you
enhance your domestic competitiveness, increase sales and profits, reduce dependence on
existing markets, extend sales potential of existing products, sell excess production
capacity, maintain cost competitiveness in your domestic market. The results of
participating in trade missions are: it will generate growth of the firm’s international
network; offer a better understanding of opportunities in the target country.
But there are also some disadvantages to keep in mind. The company may need to wait for
long-term gains; hire staff to launch international trading; modify the potential product;
develop new promotional material; incur added administrative costs. You may need to
dedicate personnel for traveling, wait long for payments, apply for additional financing,
and deal with special licenses and regulations.
(Sources: https://www.scu.edu/mobi/business-courses/business-expansion/session-11-
global-expansion/ ;
http://essay.utwente.nl/63014/1/Master_Thesis_BA_Nikolai_Oudalov.pdf )
