We now live in an economy where geographical barriers are becoming increasingly insignificant; conversely, companies continue to focus their marketing strategies in their domestic markets in which they operate in, whereby they tend to neglect the competition from emerging global markets such as the BRIC nations, said an industry expert.*

This negligence and lack of attention to the evolving trends may also cause these companies to lose out on significant revenue by catering to the global market, added Hilmy Cader, chief executive of MTI Consulting, an international management consultancy.

 The ethnocentrism of these local players may pose potential challenges in the form of a sudden surge in competition when markets are deregulated, Cader noted.

Except for some multinationals, the marketing structures (and therefore strategies) of most companies are country-centric.

The penetration of global media, the power of the Internet and the reach of large retail chains have reduced the significance of national borders (from a marketing perspective).

In some cases, this has challenged the economic viability of conventional single country marketing. Companies cannot afford to be short-sighted as markets are increasingly integrating and the pace of change accelerates; consequently they need to step out of their conventional marketing strategies which attempt to attract local markets alone.

With the advent of the Internet and social media, the marketing concept has also expanded allowing organisations, especially marketers to promote their products on a global scale at a cheaper price without the use of local conventional media which is expensive.

Although the level of impact it has on individual industries may vary, the fact remains that the Internet and the web affects the globalisation potential of individual industries.

Rapid improvements in technology are shrinking distance to markets, creating new avenues for channel distribution while also generating new sources of competition.

The deregulation of many markets, especially the emerging markets, across the world has enabled many companies, which were once confined to their domestic markets, to penetrate into new markets easily.

In some cases, companies have become internationally competitive as the threat of new competition highlights the need for effective 'glocal' strategies to adapt to these markets.

Companies may need to re-evaluate their marketing strategies to suit the global market. In doing so it must ensure to fully utilise the Internet and web, perhaps this initiative may cannibalise the marketing spend that was previously spent on advertising and promotions via conventional media - and the ROI of this spend was often not accounted for accurately.

Is it time to redraw the world (marketing) map? Will single country marketing survive or will we see the emergence of a new breed of new multinationals? – TradeArabia News Service

*This feature appeared in the October 12, 2014 edition of the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.