Fact of the Month

Nine of the twenty-six emerging countries featured in the Market Potential Index are from Asia.

Feature of the Month: Market Potential Index

You started your business, you exploited the opportunities in your local markets and now, like all entrepreneurs, you are looking for other avenues of growth. In today’s economy, emerging markets are booming and providing many great opportunities for entrepreneurs looking to expand their brand. However, with so many choices which market is right for your business?

MSU-CIBER has created a resource for small to mid-size companies designed to help solve this dilemma called the Market Potential Index (MPI). The MPI scores the market potential of the 26 countries considered emerging markets by The Economist - all of which are experiencing rapid economic growth and positive social change. The Index uses eight dimensions and takes into consideration size, growth, potential capacity and risk. The index has been published annually since 1995 and has been successfully utilized by many companies and investors to identify sustainably fast growing emerging countries. 

Two well-represented regions in this year's rankings are Asia and Central Europe. Asia is home to the top three countries: Hong Kong, China, and Singapore. These three countries have held the top spots for five years running and have been fueled by exports to developed markets and an emerging middle class. Central Europe also has three countries in the Top 10 including Czech Republic in fifth, Poland in sixth and Hungary in eighth. Many Central European countries have recently experienced accelerated growth rates and a rising standard of living through the exportation of goods to established European countries, the privatization of state-owned corporations and the introduction laws that encourage new business development.

Egypt has been in the news recently for its government overthrow and is therefore a great case study for the MPI. In this year's rankings, Egypt ranked particularly high in growth (7th) and capacity (6th) and relatively low in risk (21st) and freedom (22nd). Overall, one could interpret this country to have a relatively high market potential, but the index calls into question its risk and freedom. The protests demanding greater democracy could drastically increase their freedom rankings if Egypt is able to translate its new government into a more open economy. Egypt currently ranks 16th overall and would be a great place to research more thoroughly if conditions improve. 

If your business is looking to expand abroad, make sure you are well informed and start your learning process with the MPI and globalEDGE’s Diagnostic Tools.

From the globalEDGE Blog

Where are the best places for you to grow your business? How do you analyze which markets are best for expansion? To read more examples of how to analyze emerging markets using the MPI, click on to the globalEDGE Blog.

Featured Resources

Vale Columbia School on Sustainable International Investment: Emerging Market Global Players
The Emerging Market Global Players (EMGP) Project, a collaborative effort led by the Columbia Program on Sustainable International Investment, ranks multinational enterprises (MNEs) in emerging markets according to the level of foreign assets held. Reports are available in PDF format, some in a country-specific language.
Category: Rankings

UNDP: Human Development Reports
The Human Development Report is an independent report commissioned by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). This site includes the Human Development Reports which can be filtered by year, region and theme. Each report provides agenda-setting data and analysis. The report brings attention to international issues and policy options that place people at the center of strategies to meet the obstacles of development. The full report is available to view in PDF format, and the site is available in English, French and Spanish.
Category: Publications

Featured Academy

The World is Open for Business
This module was created in cooperation with the U.S. Commercial Service and is the first chapter of the book A Basic Guide to Exporting. In this module, we will cover: Why you should sell globally; agencies that specialize in helping small to medium-sized businesses export successfully; old assumptions about exporting that may not be accurate; and how to transform yourself and your business through exporting. A case study on the company Domes International is also included.
Category: Exporting

globalEDGE Business Review

"2010 Benchmarking Study on International Business Education at Community Colleges: International Business Knowledge"
by Sarah Singer, Tomas Hult, & Bill Motz (Volume 4, Number 5, pp. 1-2, 2010)

In this series of benchmarking studies, institutional-level data from 2008 (n=428), 2009 (n=336), and 2010 (n=309) – from a sampling frame consisting of the roughly 1,200 community colleges in the U.S. – provide answers to a multitude of questions regarding international business education. About two faculty and/or administrators participated per institution each year and were asked about five constituency groups (administrators, faculty, students, local community, and the country). This article looks at international business knowledge within the context of community colleges as we believe an increase in international business knowledge among all the five constituency groups is a minimum requirement for U.S. firms to achieve international competitiveness.

Newsletter Information

If you have suggestions on how we can improve the newsletter, tell us here!

This newsletter is being sent to you by the globalEDGE Team. You elected to receive this newsletter from globalEDGE when you registered on our website, located at: http://globaledge.msu.edu/. If you wish to unsubscribe from the mailing list, please click on the following link. Please remove me from this list.