March 2021
Author: João Esteves, Founder & CEO of United Channels Consulting
If you’re start-up or a company wanting to grow, have you considered expanding your business globally?
In our previous blog post we’ve covered why an international growth strategy is so important for your business and why you should consider the Middle East.
But the Middle East is not your only option. In fact, when starting to expand to other countries, we recommend you be strategic, choosing your new territories carefully and according to your business objectives, instead of targeting a new market simply because it’s experiencing a positive economic growth.
So in this blog post we want to give some of the reasons why you should expand you business to Iberia.
Why Iberia?
The Iberian Peninsula is composed of two countries – Portugal and Spain, two of the oldest nations in Europe with centuries of common history and cooperation. Portugal and Spain played a dominant role in the western global scene in in the 15th and 16th centuries, spearheading The Discoveries and contributing to the understanding of the world we now live in - as borders were crossed for the first time and cultures from all over the world clashed and connected.
Below, we give you four reasons why and tech vendor should expand to the Iberian market:
1. Stable region that helps scale any vendor business
Despite having been heavily affected by the coronavirus pandemic, Iberia is a territory fully integrated with the European Union, benefiting from political and economical stability as well as an exciting and vibrating culture.
With over 60 million habitants, the Iberian market counts with a rich and diverse business background invaluable to every technology vendor. Moreover, 75% of the existing companies belong to medium and low-risk sectors, further contributing to the stability and confidence in the territory.
2. It’s the best ‘Market Lab’ in Europe for any vendor
Another relevant factor to any business looking to expand internationally, is the great dynamism and the high qualification levels of the population, as well as a good acceptance of everything that is innovative and technological.
A good majority of the Portuguese and Spanish population have university degrees and especially in Portugal, virtually everybody and in particular younger generations, understands and speak English fluently – reinforcing the receptiveness of new technologies from abroad.
Furthermore, Spanish is the 4th most spoken language in the world and Portuguese, the 9th, making these countries great starting points if your are targeting Latin and South America and the Portuguese speaking African countries as potentially new territories. Indeed, if your product or solution is well received and successful in the Iberian market, it will be easier to export them to the above mentioned regions, since part of the groundwork has already been completed.
For its stability, decent market size and willingness to accept and adopt new technologies, the Iberian peninsula is an ideal territory to test, adapt and scale your business.
3. Outstanding human resources at a competitive cost
We’ve already touched upon the strong academic background and high qualifications Portuguese and Spanish, people have but allow us to explore this point further, since one cannot underestimate the importance of a qualified workforce when it comes to the introduction of new and often disruptive technology solutions.
Furthermore, particularly in Portugal, the lower costs of living in the country in comparison to other European peers, means it’s easy to find extremely qualified human resources at a competitive cost, able to support and implement every type of tech project.
This is the reason why so many multinational companies recruit some of their best workforce in Iberia.
4. Lisbon positioned as the up and coming start-up destination in Europe
A few months ago we’ve published on our LinkedIn page an article covering Lisbon’s tech scene, which we recommend you take a look at here.
For the past few years and partially due to the factor we’ve mentioned above – qualified professionals at lower cost – Lisbon has been has been placing a great effort and investment in becoming a start-up friendly city, attracting all kinds of new ideas, projects and more importantly, investors.
Lisbon is also becoming a successful incubator for companies that are truly disrupting their industries, such as Farfetch and Outsystems. This in turn, is turning heads internationally and attracting digital nomads from all around the world, excited to take advantage of the sunny climate, low cost of living and the fast-paced start-up community that is growing locally.
For all of the reasons mentioned above and more, we hoped this helped you understand why Iberia should be on you business expansion list and shed new light on this sometimes overlooked region of Europe.
And if you have any questions or would like to discuss how you could grow your business in Portugal and Spain, book here a FREE 30-min consultation!
About the author
João Beato Esteves is the CEO of United Channels Consulting. He founded the company in 2017 after 20+ years of working in the IT and cybersecurity industries developing channels for prominent companies such as Symantec and disruptive start-ups like Watchful Software.