International Trade & Institutions Business Report Essay

International Trade & Institutions Business Report - Essay Example hip brands namely Levi’s, Dockers, and Levis Strauss Signature suitable for a variety of consumers and have a strong global appeal (Just-Style, 2006). The corporation is organized into three geographic divisions – the Americas with San Francisco as the headquarters, Europe, Middle East and Africa (LSEMA), based in Brussels and the Asia Pacific Division (APD) based in Singapore. As of November 2005, the company sold through 55,000 retail locations across 100 countries. It has 107 own retail stores (those operated by self, independent franchisees and licensees) while in Europe and Asia it has 348 and 492 stores respectively (Just-Style). The company grew through acquisition and also licensed its name to be used on other products like shoes and socks. When the company ran into difficulties in early 1980s it entered into agreements with mass merchandisers to market its products (Mistler, 2001). By mid 1990s the company was back on track and started expanding in Eastern Euro pe and India as well. This report would look into the factors that led it to adopt a different approach in marketing its products in different regions and countries. Due to trade liberalization and enhanced communication, international trading has become a necessity in many sectors, one of them being the apparel sector. The internationalization process involves strategic and tactical decisions (GEB, 2006). The strategic decisions include foreign market selection, mode of entry decision, product portfolio strategies and market expansion strategies. The tactical decisions include the marketing mix strategy for individual country markets. Massive changes have come in after the apparel industry was freed from quota restrictions on 1st January 2005 after over forty years (Saheed, 2006). The enormous garment production capacity of many countries, so far locked due to quota has become available now. This has resulted in increased imports by US and Japan but lower imports in EU market due to decline in