This assignment focuses on an Australian engineering and manufacturing company called TNA Pty. Ltd. (TNA). TNA is a global leader in the food packaging and processing industry, supplying turnkey solutions and single systems to customers around the world. Your task will be to familiarise yourself with the company and then investigate and comment on specific questions relating to the company�s international operation and expansion.

MANU 1398 TNA Assignment

This assignment involves analysing and reporting on two overseas countries (Malaysia & Vietnam) as potential markets for the products and services that TNA sells.  These countries have very different social, political, legal and economic systems.  This means that they will have different advantages and disadvantages as markets for TNA.  Note that the focus of this assignment is on market potential not on production.  This means that many of the factors that are relevant to a production environment will not be as relevant here.

As a starting point it is advisable to do some background reading on how companies approach the task of selecting overseas markets. Here are some suggested references.

Czinkota, MR, Ronkainen, IA, Moffett, MH, Ang, SH, Shanker, D, Ahmad, A, Lok, P, 2009, Fundamentals of International Business, 1st Asia-Pacific Edition, John Wiley & Sons Australia, chapter 10 Market Entry Strategies.

This chapter covers the drivers behind overseas expansion which include market, cost, competitive and environmental factors.  It also covers the process of international strategy formation, market and competitive analysis, how companies conduct their market research and target market selection.  These topics are all relevant to the assignment so a good starting point is to read this chapter.

Many other texts on international business will also deal with these topics and provide useful background reading e.g. International Business, The Challenges of Globalisation, J. Wild, K. Wild, J. Han, H. Rammal, Pearson 2007, Chapter 13 Analysing International Opportunities,

There are a large number of factors that can impact market opportunities so part of your challenge is to decide which ones are most relevant to TNA.  Having determined these and researched them your next challenge is to decide on a decision framework that allows you to draw an overall conclusion regarding which country provides the best opportunity for TNA.

Note that while you have a reasonable amount of information on the company there may be important areas where you feel you need to know more.  As part of the assignment you have been asked to indicate these areas.  It is also appropriate to make assumptions about the company or its strategies if necessary provided that you provide some reasons to support these assumptions.

There are many sources of information on these countries and their potential for international business.  These include government agencies, international organisations e.g. World Bank, WTO etc. Plus large commercial organisations such as banks, accounting and consulting firms.  Your main challenge will not be obtaining data but working out which data to include.  It is also worth remembering that some information changes relatively slowly e.g. percentage of people speaking a particular language while other items change very rapidly e.g. exchange rate and therefore the data needs to be recent.