Yvonne BRODRECHTOVA IUFRO Division 5 Conference 5 10

Yvonne BRODRECHTOVA IUFRO Division 5 Conference 5. 10. 00 Forest Products Marketing & Business Management

Yvonne BRODRECHTOVA*, Michel BECKER and Heiner SCHANZ Types of Export Marketing Strategies the Case of Forest Products Industries in Slovakia Albert-Ludwig-University Freiburg Institute of Forest and Environmental Policy Markets and Marketing Section Tennenbacher Str. 4 79106 Freiburg Germany Slovakia European Union 2

Aim of work and methods To fill the empirical and theoretical research gap on export marketing strategy (EMS) types of forest products companies in transition countries by using: Ø Ø Marketing strategy approach adopted from forest marketing research on developed western countries Exploratory case study with qualitative and quantitative methodology 3

Results Export marketing strategy types and their main focus on: Type 1: Product oriented Type 4 Component 2 Type 5 Type 2 Type 3 Type 2: Product & customer oriented underlined by channels of promotion Type 3: Price & channels of sale oriented Type 1 Component 1 Type 4: Price & quality oriented Type 5: Product & customer oriented underlined by market share Fig. 1: Plots from factor analysis of eight cluster grouping variables (elements of export marketing strategy) 4

Conclusions Empirical findings: ü Deductively arrived multi-dimensional construct of five types of EMS ü Main distinctive characteristics of the five types lie in ownership structure, export volume, product type and orientation ü However, the main origins of competitive advantage are almost the same for the whole exporting forest products sector in Slovakia: (a) EMS type 1+2: Quality, Price, Quick responds to customer needs and wants (b) EMS type 3+4+5: Quality, Price, Business ethic (e. g. to meet the contracts, delivery on and in short time ) Discussion: ü The dependency and independency of EMS elements is not always clear: price and product are perceived as independent rather than dependent elements ü The empirically derived types (taxonomy) could be considered as a guide in decision making process since they better reflect reality as the typologies 5