Strategic Planning for Successful International Expansion

A long-time friend of WWJ, Walter Adamson, founder and principal at Digital Investor, sat down with us to share his latest presentation, “Strategic Planning for Successful International Expansion: Lessons Learned from Asia’s Failed Experiences,” a primer on the mistakes that mobile content companies have made while trying to expand across borders, with a focus on Japan and Australia. In the Japanese case, some have succeeded, but many others have not and Walter has provided a clear outline of common mistakes.

Walter attributes failure in many cases to unsophisticated management approaches and suggests that a solution can be found from addressing what he calls the ‘Top Six Sins’ — Strategic Intent, Underestimated Risk, Lack of Linkage (between strategy and action), Poor Balance, Poor Project Reviews and Poor Alignment (between strategy and structure). WWJ thinks Walter’s view may just be valuable to mobile companies anywhere considering a leap into someone else’s market. Full video program run-time — 41:32. (Full disclosure: Walter currently acts as an outside advisor on a project run by WWJ’s parent company, Mobikyo KK.)