GR’s role in Market Expansion — Art or Science?
Government Relations and Public Policy teams are most often associated with their role in helping their companies monitor and influence legislation in markets they are already present in and to build the needed relationship to do so successfully.
There is a lot less discussion, deliberation and clarity (as far as we can see) about the involvement of GR teams in the elusive yet critical business of entering new markets for the first time. We would love to change that and are eager to hear from you about how GR teams should think about their role and what lessons learned are out there.
A few thoughts and observations to get us started.
Market expansion matters and has become (more) political
While product-market fit and the right GTM strategy should determine the ambitions and goals for entering new markets for any business, we believe there is a critical role to play for GR teams along every step of the way.
Whether it is because your business model is heavily regulated, whether you are dealing with entrenched incumbents with political clout who don’t want you to succeed, or you just need to have a holistic understanding of the market environment given road-blocks the business is hitting, we see varied reasons for why GR teams end up working on market expansion.
Particularly in the world of technology we’ve seen ample examples of how the ability to launch your software almost instantly in markets across the world without much of a local presence has meant policy teams needed to play catch-up and where in many cases not part of the process in the first place (or the company might not have had a policy team when they expanded).
With more and more technology scale-ups having business models in more regulated industries (health, finance, transportation) and the political discussion about the impact of technology on societies and the economy, that has changed fundamentally. Being able to expand globally is critical yet has never been more political.
A colleague of mine (you know who you are) succinctly calls it the “need to obtain a social license to operate”.
Be clear about which “phase” of market entry you are supporting
As a starting point its helpful to realize which “phase” of market entry you engage on, a way of defining these could be:
> Scoping: Should we enter this market? What would it take?
> Planning: We should enter this market! How do we do it?
> Executing: Let’s enter this market! Who’s coming along?
> Maintaining: We’ve entered this market! How do we stay here?
In each of these phases the role, work-streams and -products of the GR team is going to look and feel very different. Being deliberate about that is key because mission-creep and unclear expectations are almost guaranteed if not.
As we argued previously it is important to productize this process in order to make it less opaque and random. Be very clear about what concrete products your team will be delivering in each of these phases, what goals they aim to achieve, the resources required to do so and the expectations you have in terms of support from the rest of the organization.
Set of questions on market entry the GR team answers that remain the same and create clarity
While the role and scope of product, marketing, comms, partnerships and legal teams tend to be fairly clearly defined around market entry, we often see GR teams go back and forth and swirl around on what exactly their role is and which answers on market entry they should answer for the business.
We think standardizing a set of questions you help answer can be a good starting point.
A non-exhaustive list to get you started:
- Short political, economic and social introduction to the market (think Economist Intelligence Unit)
- How is policy and legislation formulated and implemented?
- Are there upcoming legislative changes affecting our business that we should be aware of?
- Who are the main political and regulatory stakeholders with influence over our market entry and what is their role specifically?
- What is the political influence of incumbents and competitors and their local partners?
- Will their influence present an impediment to our ability to succeed?
- What expectation will there be from the government to have us make visible demonstrations of commitment to the market?
- What reputational risks should we consider and mitigate?
- Does our mission and product align with the political goals of the government?
It often is the area of GR where your impact (or lack thereof) becomes very real
Building relationships with key stakeholders, being one of 26 companies to write a white paper on a new piece of legislation or securing that meeting for your CEO… these things all matter but proving their direct impact on the bottom line of the business is often difficult (if not dangerous as we argued previously).
Market entry though is the place where the impact of GR teams all of a sudden becomes very binary. Have we enabled our products to be sold and used in this market or not? There is not really a lot of grey or a lot of nuance when you put it like that.
This is both an opportunity and a threat for GR teams. It can be cathartic in a good way though because it brings your team very close to the business and if you are able to “unblock” entire markets or regions the discussion about GR as a cost centre can change very quickly.
What skill-sets are required within the GR team to be good at this?
Interestingly we think market expansion is where it all comes together and you need to have the Swiss Army Knife of GR professionals to navigate the uncertainty and unknowns (both internally and externally).
A few things that come to mind, but curious what others think:
→ Local knowledge: Not just about the policy-making process but about the unwritten cultural and societal norms and empowering other teams to move effectively and achieve their goals within them.
→ Business acumen: There is absolutely no substitute for really understanding your business strategy and products in figuring out a good market entry strategy.
→ Decisions-making: There are so many unknowns that you need someone that has a problem-solving attitude and is willing to act and take ownership.
→ Project management: Usually market expansion teams are scrappy and under-resourced, GR teams often can add value by being great project managers given they have visibility across teams.
There are many more of course but in our experience it is here where we’ve seen some of the best examples of GR professionals excel and continuously re-define what their role is as part of the process of market entry.
The above are really just a few conversation starters and ground-rules we think can help GR teams be effective partners for market expansion.
We are really curious to hear from you though, what other aspects of market expansion are relevant? What kind of GR teams are impactful here and why? Or is this a case of over-reach and trying to find a role for GR where there really is none?
