Specifics of Entry Strategies Used by Global FMCG Companies in Emerging Markets on the Example of P&G in Russia and China

Actuality: the ongoing processes of the economy globalization, rise of competition in local and international markets, change of the world economy conjuncture are forcing companies to enter new markets, including foreign markets, to ensure their growth. Since the costs of entering new markets are very high, the failure of a strategy to enter a new market can lead to significant financial losses for a company. Moreover, with a significant reduction in the company's share in the home market, successful entry into new markets is a critical condition for its continued existence and development. In this regard, companies that plan to enter new markets are paying considerable attention to entry strategies for implementing this solution. Despite the fact that a lot of scientific research is devoted to companies' strategies for entering new markets, various classifications of strategies have been developed, conditions have been defined under which each strategy can be used optimally, success factors of each strategy are highlighted, the development of a strategy for entering a new market is still remains a non-trivial task. This is since in order to achieve the goal a company needs to develop a unique strategy that takes into account: • specific characteristics of the market to which it plans to enter: legislative regulation, cultural characteristics of consumers, level of income of consumers, etc.; • competitive advantages of the company, its weaknesses, the amount of available resources; • current economic trends in the market to which it plans to enter. Research gap. Thus, in research nowadays there is still a big gap regarding the development of successful strategies for entering the markets of certain countries, taking into account of the industry to which a company belongs. Novelty of the study. This work is aimed at partial elimination of this gap, since the aim of the work is to highlight the best practices for entering FMCG markets in developing countries. The object of this study are the entry strategies to emerging markets. The subject of the research are entry strategies of global FMCG companies. The aim of the work is to highlight the best practices in the framework of strategies for FMCG companies entering the developing markets. To achieve the goal, the following tasks were set and solved: • to highlight possible strategies for companies to access new markets; • to determine the specifics of entering the FMCG market, as well as the markets of foreign countries, primarily developing countries; • to perform an analysis of the strategies used by P & G to enter new markets; • to reveal factors that favored and, conversely, hindered the successful implementation of the strategies used by the company; • to develop recommendations to improve the strategies used by the company. The study will use quantitative and qualitative methods, among which will be used econometric analysis, SWOT analysis. During the study 2 hypotheses will be tested: 1. for FMCG the efficient strategy to enter developing market is creating a subsidiary either self-owned or joint with the company from the entering country; 2. for FMCG companies is more efficient at first to enter new developing markets by organizing export into these countries. Structure. This study includes three chapters. In the first the background on market entry theory was analyzed. In the second chapter specifics of Chinese and Russian market was reviewed. Moreover, market entry strategies of P&G in these markets were considered. In the last chapter the rate of success of implemented market entry strategies was estimated and recommendations were developed how this result could be improved.