Market Research

Market research is needed for any start up businesses especially if the business target market is in a country where customers’ behavior is not quite clear. Consumers in Germany like in many other countries have their particular needs and tastes which should be perfectly investigated in advance.

Apart from that, laws and regulation and required licenses  for each business should be checked. These things might also be different from one region to another.

Your competitive advantage compared to your competitors is another element that you should perfectly analyze. You should figure out why your customer in or outside Germany will be willing to buy your products which might have been produced in or outside Germany. What is exactly your market penetration strategy and how you can get a reasonable market share over time?

Knowing your competence and quality factors, you can now instill right business strategies in Germany, such as marketing, sourcing  and sales strategies.

You should learn about your target market consumption behavior in Germany, their likes and dislikes, their purchasing power and orientation toward quality. Germans are very quality oriented and patient and picky when it comes to choose the right products. You should also decide in which platforms and how you can entice these customers to your services.

Once these questions have been answered and you built up a network of existing customers, you should decide how you can sell them. Which interfaces are most common and trustworthy in Germany. For example in terms of online purchase, Germans do not easily trust every platform that render such services. There should be licenses and certifications a long with your online platforms so you can win their trust.

Having done all the above mentioned factors, your business developer can also help you estimate the initial capital needed to start such a business. If you are not a German resident with permanent residency, it might be very difficult to finance your project through a German bank or other financial institutes. So you should perfectly understand whether you can start the full or part of your business operation in Germany with your own initial capital until it gets to the initial income or break-even point.

When the initial required budget is being estimated, all operational  and non-operational costs should be taken into consideration. For example, the number and skills of workers and employees needed, hardware and software facilities, marketing and advertisement costs, overhead costs, and in case of buying an already established business, the business price.

It should also be noted that if this investment is going to be done with the purpose of getting the Germany residency, the chamber of commerce or the economy promotion organization in each region might have some preferences that could effect your initial required budget. For example, you might need to employ any person in the first year for your business but the chamber of commerce of that region might expect you to do so to get you a residency.

Long story short, as a foreign investor who wants to set foot in Germany, you should perfectly understand your supply chain first.

• who are your suppliers?
• who are your customers?
• what is your operation?
• what licenses are required to run this business in Germany?
• how much capital is needed to start the business and get the residency?
• what is your marketing and sourcing strategy?
• what is your sales strategy?

Your team in Wise Business Group / OWS is ready to help you conduct your market research in order to get the most optimum result to operate your business in Germany.