As the manager of international expansion for Konsyl, Kim Vaccari was the ideal professional to conduct an informational interview with. I first met Kim last year while participating in an international consulting project for the company through the University of Maryland CIBER program. During the project, I learned that Kim’s official title of Sales Operations Manager is a little misleading. Besides sales, Kim manages the company’s international expansion, distributor relations and packaging design. At that time, Kim was leading the project of redesigning the packaging of the company’s products in order to reflect the company’s shift into the lifestyle segment of the market. As someone who plans to consult companies on how and where to expand their operations, I was very curious to learn of all of the advice that Kim could offer when it comes to operating in the global market.
During our conversation, Kim emphasized the importance of trust. No matter how or where a company expands, the company needs to be able to trust the people and organizations working with them. Because there are a lot of processes that go into international operations, companies cannot micromanage every little aspect of their business. Company leadership cannot know everything about every market so it needs to partner with knowledgeable employees and companies. Those employees and companies can take care of the details while the company leadership gives the direction of the current strategy. Especially for Konsyl, trust is very important because the company is in the pharmaceutical industry expanding through the use of foreign distributors. Regulations in the pharmaceutical are very strict–for good reason–and compliance is essential for success. Thus, Konsyl finds it essential to find partners who are well-versed in this technical knowledge and who can be trusted to work in the best interest for Konsyl.
Not only can the distributors ensure that Konsyl obeys by all of the rules and regulations of the given country, but they can also be a source of further international expansion. Distributors are closer to the target market and to the other distributors in the region. As a result, a good partnership is one where the distributor offers insights on where the company might want to go next. They may suggest a distributor in a neighboring country. Because the first distributor’s reputation rests on the performance of the recommended distributor, distributors have an incentive to stick their neck out only for distributors of high quality. In recommending this new distributor, the two distributors form a bond and can recommend each other to various suppliers. Here, trust is again at play.
Finally, trust is very important for Konsyl because the actions of the distributors reflect on Konsyl’s brand. Konsyl is focused on creating a premium image for its product around the globe. As a result, if one of the distributors sells at below the “suggested” price that Konsyl has provided, it can significantly cheapen the brand. Because Konsyl no longer has control of the product once it is delivered to the distributor, Konsyl makes sure to go through a very rigorous vetting process whenever going abroad in order to ensure that the distributor will not do something that will significantly hurt the image of the brand. Kim mentioned that the company has in fact had to manage some instances where the distributors didn’t sell the product in the way that Konsyl had suggested. So, she had a meeting with the distributor and explained to them why the product is sold at a premium price and why it is sold only to select retailers. She then listened to the distributor’s knowledge of the domestic target market and they worked out a strategy to keep the premium image of the product while conforming to the expectations of the consumers. Kim highlighted that the respect that both companies offered each other by having a discussion instead of autocratic decision making further serves to foster a positive relationship and increase the trust between the two partners.
To conclude, my conversation with Kim Vaccari was very enlightening as it gave me some insights on international business operations that go on behind the scenes. Whenever I work with partners I will make sure to foster a relationship and to encourage trust in order to promote a beneficial partnership.