Adaptation of products for opportunity in new markets: a study on religious values of Islam.

• Author: Ferreira, Gleriani T.C.

1. INTRODUCTION

   In general, companies seeking to start their business in foreign markets in order to identify similarities between his country and target country in order to, among other things, facilitate the acceptance of its products due to ease of managing a product that serves many markets with same specification. However, it is clear that consumers have specific needs and even need to be perceived as unique. Hence the importance of adaptation, or even personalization. Our object of study does not go through individual issues, but examines the requirements for a significant group of believers to an ancient religion that establishes, among other things, patterns of consumption. This study aims to examine, on the perspective of product adaptation, the adaptation strategies of Brazilian chicken meat to meet the religious principles of Islam.

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

   2.1 Adaptation of Products

   Concern over the possibility of standardizing some elements of marketing strategy began in the early 60s, with the argument that the similarity noted among European consumers would allow the use of a uniform advertising. Basically, until the 80's, most studies on the trend of globalization occurred in the field of propaganda, until the article "The Globalization of Markets" (Levitt, 1983) laid the foundations of what became known as Global Marketing and proposes the coordination of marketing activities and not only the standardization of marketing actions, believing that global competitor constantly seek to standardize their offerings everywhere to achieve economies of scale and thus never be presumed that the customer is a king who supposedly knows what she wants. Goes on to say that different cultural preferences, national tastes and standards, and business institutions are vestiges of the past. Some inheritances die gradually; others thrive and expand in a global preference chain. Keegan (2002), Kotler and Keller (2006) and other leading marketing experts believe that the pure models, ie, a strategy fully standardized or fully designed for each country in which the company operates, are rarely encountered. For them, marketing must worry about performing tasks of standardization and differentiation simultaneously. On this same subject, we have the work of Kenichi Ohmae (1989) saying that when it comes to product strategy, managing in a borderless world does not mean managing by the average, because the attraction of operating globally removes the obligation not to individualize the product per location.

   Based on the analysis presented, Salles (1993) draws the following strategic options: a) creating a product with universal demand, fully standardized or with minor modifications, b) to develop global products to meet a universal thread as the luxury market, for example c) use the same product to suit different segments of each market; d) to group countries according to their similarities with cultural habits, religious, economic development, among others. This study proposes to share with authors who argue that an organization must have effective mechanisms integrators compatible with the diversity of their environment, therefore, identify and recognize these environments is of paramount importance to the organization and is essential to identify the strengths of the macro-environment. In a highly competitive environment in which businesses need to plan their strategy for market expansion and increased sales by adding value to existing products or services, or even developing new ones, has become critical to understand consumer needs and be able to serve them. The performance in foreign markets allows an expansion of sales and reduce risk of loss in case your only market experiencing a period of crisis. But if it is sufficiently complex to manage a company to meet its domestic market, exporting means a broad research exercise, planning, decision making and monitoring being even more complex work in a foreign country for having, at the outset, a disadvantage to a competitor in this market: it is less familiar with the culture, customs, preferences, legislation, finally, with the country's institutions. The relevance of this topic is the discussion about the environmental analysis of the target market and the decision to adapt its product to serve you.

3. CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT AND RELIGION: HOW VALUE OF ISLAM HALAL

   Globalization has brought opportunity for service to new markets and opened the discussion on the need to adapt the product to meet the new market with some kind of...