What is the EPRG framework of International Marketing?
A company must reorient and re-organize its activities in response to the various operational responsibilities that come with different levels of involvement in foreign markets. There are some recommendations in the EPRG framework to help shed some light on this problem.
The EPRG framework distinguishes between four major categories of firm orientation towards the internationalisation of operations. These concepts include ethnocentrism, Polycentrism, Regiocentrism, and Geocentrism (EPRG).
Ethnocentric Orientation
An organisation with an ethnocentric orientation believes that products, marketing tactics, and strategies that work in the domestic market will also work in markets abroad. Foreign markets are merely seen as a continuation of the domestic market. With little to no difference in product formulation and specifications, pricing strategy, distribution, and promotional measures in the domestic and international markets, all foreign marketing operations in such a firm are planned and carried out from the home base. The company typically relies on foreign agents and export-import merchants for its export sales.
Polycentric Orientation
When a company takes a polycentric approach to international marketing, it makes an effort to organise its global marketing efforts on a country-by-country basis. Individual strategies are developed in accordance with how each country is treated as a distinct market entity. To meet the needs of the market in each nation, local assembly or production facilities and marketing organisations are established.
Polycentrism may be best suited for businesses that are seriously invested in international marketing and have the financial means to make international investments for deeper, longer-term market penetration.
Regiocentric Orientation
In a regiocentric approach, the company adopts a regional marketing strategy for a collection of nations with comparable market traits. Production and distribution facilities are built to serve the entire region with effective operation economies, closer control, and coordination. Operational strategies are developed based on the entire region rather than individual countries.
Geocentric Orientation
With a geocentric orientation, the company adopts a global marketing strategy and transforms its operations into ones that are truly global in scope. To serve the various national or regional markets through a complex but well-coordinated system of productive and distributive network, the management of a global enterprise establishes manufacturing and processing activities at specific locations around the world.
Regiocentric and geocentric approaches to international marketing are very similar, with the possible exception that the geocentric orientation necessitates a much larger scale of operation, coordination, and organisational set-up in order to cater to markets with heterogeneous characteristics, which are typically more pronounced in geocentrism than regiocentrism. A similar strategy is being used globally by automakers, led by Ford. One example is that the name Ford is the same everywhere. The logo is identical. The light blue colour used by Ford is the same.
