th foreign environments, along with the greater degree of uncertainty in operation across borders, create a high level of risk. To reduce this risk, one should know exactly what they are getting into. There is a need for a collection of information, which will apply to their expansion abroad. This will help a company make better crucial decisions in their international venture. Information is required to help in several different aspects of decision-making. It will aid in deciding what countries to enter, what product markets, what target market, and what mode of entry. Such information can be obtained by primary or secondary data.With research there are risk factors that will be reduced. There are three major types of risk factors that can be affected. The first is political risk, which would be information on the government. Next would be financial and foreign exchange risks, which would be information on the rate of inflation, currency depreciation, or restrictions on capital flows and repatriation of earnings. There are also legal and regulatory factors, which deal with import-export restrictions, various forms of ownership, modes of operation, tariff barriers, product regulation, and legislation. Some factors that need to be researched are indicators of the market potential. One such factor would be demographic characteristics, which deals with population size, rate of population growth, urbanization of the area, population density and age structure. There are also economic characteristics that deal with factors such as gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP), rate of growth, and income distribution. As well there are geographic characteristics that need to be considered, such as physical size of the country, climate conditions, and topography conditions. Also, there are technological characteristics that should be looked at such as the level of technological education, sophistication of consumer e...
