Positioning of governmental export promotion services

Purpose – This paper shall fully chronicle how the environment of an export promotion organisation (EPO) shapes an EPO’s strategic options for action and thereby explain how and why EPOs determine which activities to offer to their exporter population. Design – The case of the recently opened Oficina Suiza de Comercio en Mexico (OSC) was analysed by applying the strategic management process by Lombriser and Abplanalp (2010). Data was gathered through 20 semi-structured interviews with selected OSC stakeholders as well as through the revision of secondary data. Findings – Several strategic alternatives for OSC’s business that match with existing literature could be formulated. The strategic options were primarily affected by (i) the clients’ needs, (ii) the EPO’s control entity and (iii) the general environment, which is the part of the environment that cannot be directly influenced. The customer need thereby incorporates the accreditation of a service’s existence, the control entity provides the overall setup for the offer and the general environment holds the optimisation potential and thus allows a judgement about the usefulness of a particular service in an EPO setting.