Business - to-business marketing in Latin America

This special issue on “Business-to-business marketing in Latin America” features four articles and two case analyses and focuses on a variety of timely and pertinent issues. Latin American markets, running from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego, are now emerging as market economies as they continue to develop and adopt market oriented activities while developing stronger interregional and international trade relations. Latin American markets have begun an impressive transformation from predominantly closed markets with high inflation and uncertain stability to economies that serve as sources and locations for foreign investment and B2B exchange. The articles and cases in this special edition cover a variety of important issues and are abstracted below. We hope you find the contents interesting and motivating. Arturo Z. Vasquez-Parraga, Reto Felix and Aberdeen Leila Borders in the article, “Rationale and strategies of Latin American companies entering, maintaining, or leaving US markets”, evaluate foreign direct investment by Latin American companies in the USA. Their preliminary analysis of secondary data shows that Latin American investment is significant and growing at a fast pace. They find however that there is no complete analysis of the characteristics and trends in these investments, nor a review of the strategies used by these companies for entering or exiting the US market. The study, through the use of secondary data and a sample of Mexican companies to illustrate and analyze the commonly used strategies for the entry, maintenance, and exit strategies. The Mexican companies evaluated were primarily manufacturers of industrial goods. These companies’ preferred entry mode was through partnerships. In addition, the paper describes the patterns of direct investment, asset ownership and intrafirm B-to-B trade of Latin American operating in the USA. Andrew J. Rohm, Vishal Kashyap, Thomas G. Brashear and George R. Milne in their article, “The use of online marketplaces for competitive advantage: a Latin American perspective” identify small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as critical players in the market development throughout Latin America due to their numbers and their supporting roles in industrial commodity chains. They also show that SMEs have not adopted electronic commerce or become involved in B2B emarketplaces. The authors provide an overview of B2B ecommerce in Latin America and outline the evolution and forms of online marketplaces. This is followed by an integration of multiple frameworks of analysis in addition to an analysis of the factors influencing the extent to which Latin American businesses employ B2B online marketplaces. The authors conclude that B2B e-commerce is essential, but that SMEs must analyze their positions and power before adopting a B2B ecommerce strategy and avoid the “launch and learn” approach of common among the larger players in their commodity chains. The next