Assessment 1: Global Market Opportunity Assessment
You are the Managing Director of London-based musical instrument manufacturer InTunes that employs 30 people and has a turnover of £3 million per annum. The company has performed well in recent years by selling good quality pianos, violins and guitars to the UK market. You now want to expand the business by selling abroad. Before committing resources to this strategic development there is a need to identify an appropriate market. This assessment requires you to undertake a Global Market Opportunity Assessment to:
- Identify the most appropriate country to target;
- Understand the demand potential in that country and the suitability of the products to be sold;
- Determine the market size and potential;
- Choose an appropriate foreign partner to help enter and compete in the market.
Assessment 2: Global Sustainability Plan
Based on the company and chosen market in Assessment 1, you now have to create a Global Sustainability Plan for the international growth strategy of InTunes. There are a number of activities the company can focus their sustainability efforts on. These include the main factors in the Global Sustainability Management framework:
This assessment requires you to develop a sustainability plan for the company as they embark on the international growth strategy based on the GMOA undertaken in Assessment 1.
Assessment 1:
Introduction
Identified Market for InTunes
As per Statistical data, their musical instrument market size has been increasing with a potential US $18.63 billion to be growing in 2022 (Musical Instruments – Brazil: Statista market forecast, 2024). There have been higher prevalence and growth opportunities for the musical instrument industry in prospective target countries like India, Spain, Brazil, USA, Japan, and China, under the influence of traditional percussion instruments.
Opportunity of the Market for InTunes
However, there have been the latest trends in the usage of sustainable musical instruments, based on the growing awareness of environmental concerns among musicians as well as consumers. This has projected the concerns regarding less carbon foot printing which have undertaken steps for minimizing ecological footprint, which adheres to the requirements of Intune for manufacturing acoustic sustainable guitars, along with the availability of the ash wood for the manufacturing of the guitar (Calvano et al., 2023).
Global Market Opportunity for InTunes
For a deeper understanding of the global market opportunity for the manufacturing of sustainable Guitar for the target market of Brazil, the GMOA framework has been considered, based on which the approaches have been highlighted as follows:
Suitability of products
The suitability of the product of manufacturing Guitar in Brazil by InTunes has been guard based on the analysis of the following criteria, as follows:
Cultural Sensitivity
To understand the rich cultural heritage of Brazil, guitars have been an intricate part of their tradition. Brazil has been rich in the generation of the genre of Choro, which laid the popularity of instrumental music in Brazil. By the 1930s the prevalence of guitar in Brazil developed the usage of guitars based on various varieties: cavaquinho, six-string guitar, seven-string guitar, and pandeiro (May 2013). The influence of the Choro history has influenced the prominence for catering the taste of guitar at the regional level in Brazil, with the recognized iconic figures like Dino Sete-Cordas, and Vaz de Castro.
An understanding of the deep cultural sensitivity in Brazil to the usage of Guitar shows the suitability of InTunes in their decision to manufacture Guitars in Brazil and internationalize themselves in the Brazilian country. The popularity and obsession with music and guitar in Brazil proves to be a suitable reason for the decision of InTunes to internationalize in Brazil
Eco-Friendly Materials
Figure: Features of Acoustic Guitar using Wooden Components
Source: (Calvano et al., 2023)
As per the GMOA framework, the suitability of the product manufactured by InTunes is also based on the materials used in the manufacturing process as well as their trend and popularity within the Musical Instrument Manufacturing industry. As gained from the above Figure, the main components for manufacturing guitars have been wood, which is used for the construction of the different parts and components of the Guitar. As also gained from the literature reviews, the initial manufacturing of the Guitars includes Brazilian rosewood. However, this has resulted in the overexploitation of the species due to its increased illegal trade (Calvano et al., 2023). This has resulted in the upsurge of the trend of using sustainable resources link ash wood or urban ash for the manufacturing of the different parts of Guitars, which is available in plenty in Brazil.
As InTunes has decided to manufacture its Guitars using sustainable resources like Ash Wood, it caters to the trend of eco-friendly musical instruments worldwide along with Brazil. This highlights the suitability of the product for InTunes to enter the new Brazilian Musical Instrument Manufacturing industry.
Country market size
However, an intense analysis shows the Brazilian musical instrument manufacturing industry has a higher growth chance, of reaching R US $ 1.185m by 2024, with an annual growth rate of 9.26% (Musical Instruments – Brazil: Statista market forecast, 2024). This is because of the influence of the culture of Brazil as well as the playfulness of the Ashwood resource for manufacturing sustainable guitars. Based on the research, the potential target markets have been eliminated, primarily because of the popularity of the trend of using sustainable musical instruments in Brazil.
Also, the country market size of Brazil has been gauged based on the criteria as follows:
Size and Growth
Brazil shows a higher percentage of growth and source of revenue from their musical instrument manufacturing industry, because of its higher popularity, which contributed around 16 million US dollars between 2008 to 2018, as per the Statistical report, in the figure below.
Figure: Musical Instruments Manufacturing Revenue Brazil 2008-2018
Source: (Statista Research Department and 14, O. 2014)
Standards and Regulations
Brazil has the strong Lacey Act, that results in stopping the illegal trade of mahogany. Also, as per the Act, put restrictions on Costa Rica and Peru, based on the increased exports of mahogany. This caused the Brazilian government to take strict actions against the cultivation of Mahogany or Rosewood (Gibson and Warren, 2016). This proves to be an advantage for InTunes towards their internationalized, because of their usage of the substitute of Ash Wood. To understand the country market size of Brazil, there has been an understanding of the larger credential within the Musical instruments segment, which is estimated to reach 66.2 million U.S dollars, which has resulted in bringing average changes (Revenue in the musical instruments market for different segments Brazil 2018-2028, Statista).
Availability and Sophistication of Distribution
There has been higher potential within the Brazilian timber market, that would be effective for InTune for their manufacturing and distribution of Guitars. Also, Brazil has ample availability of substitutes like ziricote (Cordia dodecandra), padauk (Pterocarpus soyauxii), and wenge as a more sustainable approach (Gibson and Warren, 2016).
Unique Customer Requirements
Brazil has the availability of wood ash within the Brazilian Cerrado area, providing InTune with a higher opportunity for the manufacturing of sustainable guitars, which tends to suit the unique customer requirements for sustainable musical instruments (Souza Silva Filho et al., 2024).
Market potential
To understand the market potential of InTune to internationalize itself in Brazil, an indepth trend analysis has been carried out for a deeper understanding of the industry-specific indicators, key competitors, consumers, supply networks of the Brazilian Musical Instrument Manufacturing industry, using Porter’s Five Forces, as follows:
| Factors | Measures | Analysis |
| Competitive Rivalry | High | One of the leading Guitar Manufacturers in Brazil is Rozini. This company has been leading the Musical Instrument manufacturing industry of Brazil using legalized wood that is also certified by the Brazilian Institute for Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (ROZINI BRAZIL. Home, 2018) |
| Supplier Power | Moderate | As Brazil has plenty of resources in the supply of ash wood as well as other high-quality woods, for the manufacturing of Guitars, the supplier’s power within the Brazilian Musical instrument manufacturing industry has been moderate. |
| Buyer Power | Moderate | Brazilian Musical Instrument Manufacturing industry faces moderate threat from buyers, because of the presence of the various manufacturers and brands within the country, but they’re limited companies using sustainable materials for the production of Guitars |
| Threat of Substitution | Low | The threat of substitution for the Guitars in Brazil is lower, because of the presence of the strong cultural heritage regarding Guitars as well as other musical instruments. Further, there are limited organizations applying ash wood as the raw material for the manufacturing of Guitars in Brazil to attain sustainability (Zorič et al., 2019). |
| Threat of New Entrance | Low | The threat of new entrants within the Brazilian musical instrument manufacturing industry, as this requires higher investment, local networks as well as intense research. Also, the prominent existing players in the Brazilian musical instrument manufacturing industry pose a greater threat to the new entrants. |
Partner Capabilities
There is potential for InTunes provision to gain partnering capabilities with local Musical Instrument manufacturing companies, which includes channel intermediaries as well as highly available distribution infrastructure to enter the target market. Based on the analysis of Porter’s Five Forces, the market potential of the Brazilian Musical Instrument manufacturing industry. The analysis explored the competitive market within the Brazilian Musical instrument manufacturing industry, which has highlighted the potential competitive rivalry within the Brazilian market, with the presence of Rozini.
Human Resources
InTune can also gain benefits by acquiring skilled craftsmen specialized in the production of sustainable guitars using wood ash, to understand the level of pitch, by using alternative materials including alternative growth species, fast-growing species, laminated wood as well as synthetic materials (French et al., 2019). Brazil contains special craftsmen capable of using inferior materials like Shipping pallets for making good instruments at cheap labor, which proves to be effective for InTune.
Business partners and mode of entry to market
To make a possible entry into the Brazilian musical instrument manufacturing industry, InTunes can make probable partnerships with local manufacturing companies. InTunes can make collaborative approaches, to developing their distribution channel, through various ways:
Franchising
InTunes can make franchises with local companies like the potential leading musical instrument manufacturing organization Rozini, and Stone Guitar Company, to sell their products (Stone-guitar-company, 2024). This would be profitable for InTunes to develop a strong grasp of the Brazilian industry of musical instrument manufacturing, in exchange for royalties.
International Collaborative Venture
The consideration of the International, Collaborative Venture would allow InTunes to make collaborative cross-border business alliances with the local Brazilian companies, gain access to plenty of resources and manufacture guitars in an effective manner (Atalar, 2020).
Conclusion
Based on the overall analysis of the assessment of the internalization of InTunes in the Brazilian Music Instrument Manufacturing industry, it can be concluded that Brazil proves to be a potential target market, with a substantial advantage.
This analysis portrayed Brazil with ample resources of sustainable materials for the manufacturing of Guitars, along with higher consumer preferences towards sustainable musical instruments as well as rich cultural heritage. This concludes the notion, that the decision of Internalization in Brazil, can prove to be fruitful for InTunes to gain a larger consumer base, because of the higher prevalence of music enthusiasts in Brazil.
ASSESSMENT 2
Introduction
This paper is all about conducting sustainability planning for the UK-based musical instruments manufacturing company InTunes. It is highly necessary to set out sustainability goals before making the sustainability planning as without setting goals, it is not possible to make proper planning (Berger, 2020). The sustainability goals of InTunes are reducing the usage of materials that are harmful to the environment while manufacturing musical instruments by sourcing sustainable resources, contributing to reduced carbon emissions, and practising ethical and sustainable supply chains by partnering with supplier organisations that are concerned about sustainability. After setting out the goals, it is necessary to set out the necessary activities also that are helpful to achieve these goals.
The first activity is sourcing only sustainable resources like ash wood for manufacturing guitars as InTunes targets to sell guitars in the new market of Brazil. The reason is that the guitar is considered an integral part of the Brazilian musical heritage (Reily, 2020). On the other hand, ash wood is considered more sustainable than rosewood as the former is derived from the trees that are grown in urban areas. At the same time, it is durable, self-seeding and fast-growing.
Even, it can be sourced from dead trees also (Calvano et al., 2023). Considering this, the second activity is avoiding rosewood to contribute to reducing carbon emission levels. Previously rosewood was used in Brazil for manufacturing guitars, but currently, it is banned as it causes deforestation (Timber Legality Risk Dashboard: Brazil, 2021).
Due to this, the government has banned the usage of rosewood. Since deforestation increases global warming, InTunes should avoid this by manufacturing guitars and using only ash wood (Panja, 2021). Lastly, the third activity will be partnering with ash wood supplier organisations that are serious and concerned about environmental harm and sustainability.
Sustainability Activity 1: sourcing only sustainable resources like ash wood
The first set activity is sourcing only sustainable resource like ash wood as it is helpful to reduce harm to the environment as this is a sustainable option for manufacturing guitar. Overall, all sorts of wood is sustainable.
On one hand, wood is considered sustainable and environment friendly as it is renewable, recyclable, biodegradable and smaller carbon lifecycle footprint than other products. On the other hand, it is also seen that wood is more eco-friendly than the elements like steel, concrete ort plastic. If it is analysed critically, then it can be seen that steel, plastic, concrete and other sorts of materials generate total annual emission of 0.53 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.
But, instead of these, if wood is used, then it has been seen that wood generates almost half of the emission compared to the materials discussed above (The future of sustainable building is Wood, 2023). Therefore, experts believe that using wood wherever possible instead of steel, concrete or plastic can be able to reduce emissions by 0.15 billion (The future of sustainable building is Wood, 2023).
On the top of that, it is also a fact that in the history of crafting musical instruments, wood is considered a favourable material because of its workability and aesthetic value. Thus, wood is considered the most significant material for manufacturing guitar (Calvano et al., 2023).
In Brazil the ash wood like Garapa wood is one of the popular species of ash wood and is available in tropical areas of Brazil. Due to this reason, it is considered the Brazilian hardwood. Therefore, since it is seen that wood is a sustainable option in making any usable object and ash wood like Garapa is one of the popular and highly available ash wood in Brazil, it is believed that using this to manufacture guitars can be effective and suitable for InTunes (Christoforo et al., 2020). Another point of using ash wood is that the trees are abundant and can be collected from dead trees also. This means, it does not require uprooting any tree for collecting the ash wood (Calvano et al., 2023). Due to this reason, it can be beneficial for InTunes.
Figure: Ash Wood
(Source: Wholesale exotic hardwood lumber mill distributor, 2024)
Sustainability Activity 2: avoiding rosewood to contribute to reducing carbon emission levels
In the above discussion, it is seen that wood is the most sustainable option for manufacturing guitars. The reason is that other materials like steel metals and plastics generate more carbon emissions than wood (The future of Sustainable Building is Wood, 2023). Here, in this context, it is seen that Rosewood is a form of wood that can be beneficial for making the backs, side parts and finger boards of guitars. But, in Brazil, this is completely banned.
Critical analysis of this shows that the coastal Atlantic forest of Brazil and rosewood is highly popular around the world for its dark red colour and sense bark. Here, the problem is growing popularity of rosewood increases the frequency of deforestation. Considering this, in the year 1992, the government of Brazil banned the use of rosewood for international business purposes (Brazilian rosewood, 2020).
Not only the government of Brazil, but the United Nations also raised concern about this (New campaign targets illegal rosewood logging in the lower Mekong Basin, 2024). Therefore, InTunes need to avoid using rosewood. Rather, along with ash wood as stated above, InTunes should find other sorts of sustainable wood for manufacturing guitars. By avoiding rosewood, the level of deforestation would be reduced, then it is understood that it would also reduce the level of carbon emission.
Sustainability Activity 3: partnering with ash wood supplier organisations that are serious and concerned about environmental harm and sustainability
In this third activity, InTunes must develop partnerships with the organisations in Brazil that supply Garapa ash wood. Here in this context, it can be said that InTunes should develop a partnership with the supplier organisation like Advantage Florestal. This is a Brazil-based organisation that supplies hardwood to companies in the wholesale market. This is a direct wholesaler (Wholesale exotic hardwood lumber mill distributor, 2024).
The main advantage of working with this organisation is that it is highly concerned about the environment. The reason behind this claim is that being a direct wholesaler, it responsibly harvests the Garapa from managed forests and the reason for harvesting from the managed forests is that it helps to provide endless resources for future generations.
Even, if the mission of this organisation is analysed, then it can be seen that it tries to ensure all sorts of legal paperwork that is required for trading of hardwoods including Garapa. It is focused on reducing recycled materials as much as possible. Even, it is also focused on maintaining fair pricing and high quality standards of the products.
Due to this reason, it is seen that Advantage Florestal is concerned about environmental sustainability (Wholesale exotic hardwood lumber mill distributor, 2024). Therefore, it is seen that InTunes need to develop a partnership with Advantage Florestal in Brazil. This would help them to maintain all their sustainability goals and develop a strong reputation in the Brazilian market.
GMOA and Sustainability
The GMOA framework speaks about five steps the organisations should follow while expanding their business to any foreign countries. These components are readiness to internationalise, suitability of products, identification of the market size, analysing the market potential and selecting foreign business partners.
In the context of InTunes and its decision to expand its business to Brazil, it is seen that since InTunes has made the decision to foreign expansion, it is understood that it is readiness to internationalise its business. In terms of the suitability of products, it is seen that InTunes has decided to manufacture guitars made with Garapa ash wood in Brazil by considering the popularity of sustainable elements in the industry and market of musical instruments.
Since it is seen that wood is a sustainable material and rosewood which is available in Brazil is banned as it causes deforestation, InTunes has planned to use Garapa ash wood to manufacture the guitars (Calvano et al., 2023). Ashwood is also available highly in Brazil and can avoid harm to the environment.
In this way, it has developed the suitability of the guitars by considering sustainability. Since music is an integral part of Brazilian culture, huge numbers of music-loving people are there in Brazil. Therefore, the experts assume that by the end of 2024, the musical instrument manufacturing industry will reach 1.18 million USD (Musical Instruments – Brazil: Statista market forecast, 2024). Then, it is seen that it can help InTunes to sustain itself in the Brazilian market.
This also indicates that the rich music culture and the popularity of musical instruments increase the potential for the market of InTunes in Brazil. In terms of selecting foreign partners, it can be said that Advantage Florestal would be the main effective supplier partner for InTunes in Brazil as they supply Garapa ash wood and also consider environmental sustainability (Wholesale exotic hardwood lumber mill distributor, 2024). Therefore, it is seen that through following all the components of the GMOA framework, InTunes can be able to develop a sustainable business in Brazil.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that to make the business of InTunes sustainable in the market Brazil, the discussed activities can be helpful for them to drive sustainability planning. These are sourcing only sustainable resources like ash wood, avoiding using rosewoods to reduce carbon emission levels and partnering with supplier organisations that have awareness regarding sustainability. Through following and maintaining these activities can be helpful for them.
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Reference List
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