Internationalization strategies for services

Discusses some key challenges for service firms planning to go abroad and presents five different types of internationalization strategies for services, none of which are mutually exclusive. These are: direct export of services in terms of repairs and maintenance that are most appropriate to industrial markets; systems export that is a joint export effort by two or several firms whose solutions complement each other; direct entry mode which means that the service firm establishes a service‐producing organization of its own on the foreign market; indirect entry which is used when the service firm wants to avoid establishing a local operation that is totally or partly owned by itself (common modes are through licensing agreements and franchising); and electronic marketing which does not bind a firm to a particular location.