The vision of international market expansion or merging companies can be very exciting, representing a great opportunity for growth and significant profits. However, that excitement can create a fervor that blinds us to the reality of potential pitfalls.

We have seen it time and time again: successful companies in their home country decide to expand globally, hiring a legal department, logistics operations, and a finance team, feeling ready to achieve great results. However, they often fail miserably, resulting in millions (and sometimes billions) of dollars in losses, wasted time, and a miserable work climate, with thousands of layoffs.

As if that weren’t enough, the company also bears the infamous scarlet mark of a failed international expansion attempt. This has been the harsh reality for companies like Walmart, Target, Starbucks, and Home Depot. Despite their success in their home countries, these companies faced massive losses, store closures, and thousands of layoffs when they tried to expand internationally.

This sad and harsh reality should not be ignored. On the contrary, it should lead us to reflect on the weaknesses that led to these losses.

From an objective point of view, the main reasons these companies failed were their lack of perception and the mistaken belief that:

Home Country Formulas Will Continue to Work: Even if a company has been successful initially, that formula does not guarantee success in international market expansion. Each market has its own peculiarities, and it is essential that teams communicate actively to identify weaknesses.

The Business Plan is the Basis: We must learn to be flexible at all times. Although many know this in theory, failed cases show that teams did not have the ability to quickly change their trajectory to adapt to the local market, despite witnessing that their strategies were not working.

Expanding is Only About Finance, Labor, Management, Legislation, and Marketing: It is important to understand that successful global expansion requires the solid integration of core teams and local teams to ensure the success of the expansion. Despite starting the expansion, results show that leadership and teams did not always communicate optimally.

Therefore, the key to successful international market expansion is creating integrated international teams that communicate openly about local market demands, the loss of connection with customers, difficulties in strategies, and the need for adjustments to market changes and multicultural differences between teams.

This all seems logical, but when expanding, teams often go into survival mode, trying to keep the expansion challenge afloat. Their management is not communicating from a global perspective, keeping vision, purpose, and strategy in focus.

Hence, the importance of solidifying teams from being a group of individuals to a high-performance team that can exceed growth expectations in record time. In addition to focusing on labor, financial, and legal logistics, we must also include the integration of teams to achieve optimal communication. They must be capable of creating cultural adaptation, integrating the vision and values of the company, and ensuring success in international market expansion.

This necessary step should not be ignored if companies want to be successful in expanding or merging internationally.