The China Venture

While the testing for the general readiness of a company to venture abroad may be done
internally, testing for the specific product-market fit will require a lot of market information,
which may have to be acquired from external sources.
3.1.3 Practical Illustrations
3.1.3.1 Case Study 1: A Swiss labelling and labelling systems company (LLSC)
LLSC is a family owned business with subsidiary companies in Germany, France, England
and the United States. According to turnover and number of employees, it is clearly an SME.
Nevertheless, LLSC is one of the world's leading companies in its market segment.
Around three quarters of LLSC's products are self-adhesive labels, with labelling system
machines taking up the rest. The company is renown for its quality, as well as fast and reliable
after sales service. A particular strength of the company is a sophisticated network, which,
however, is operational mainly in the company's Swiss home market. The company's largest
clients are the world's leading consumer products firms which use LLSC's products for
normal labelling purposes, on-product marketing, and related purposes.
By the end of the 1990s, LLSC's geographical reach had spread from Switzerland, to
neighbouring European countries and then to the large market of the United States. However,
until 1997, the company's experience in the Asian markets remained very limited. There was
no clear strategy for the region, even though interest in China's large market kept growing.
This interest was generated mainly by the top management's contacts with friends and
associates, who were doing business with China. Every now and then, an initiative was started
to generate more information but these efforts never resulted in a long lasting project.
In late 1997, the company asked a team of student researchers 73 from the University of St.
Gallen, to help assess the company-to-market fit of LLSC and China. The results of this
investigation are reported here. As the company asked to investigate the market potential, the
specific fit analysis was carried out and is presented here.
Specific Fit
To assess the specific fit of the company's products to the Chinese market, a market study was
conducted among the company's leading customers, as well as industry experts abroad and
73 The author was leader of the team, which comprised the following fellow researchers: Guo Zhaoui,
Kölsch Manfred, Zambon Antonia, Zeng Lingyan.
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