Case Study: Tim Horton’s
Project for the International Marketing class
from the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria
— SCHOOL
Polytechnic Institute
of Leiria
— CLASS
International Marketing
— DATE
May/2020
As a part of the Marketing degree in the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, students must analyze and simulate the new arrival of a foreign brand in another country, and by the end all the data should be converted to form a complete international marketing plan.
The team, comprised of 5 people, decided to imagine how the Canadian brand, Tim Horton’s, should behave if it decided to open a franchise in Portugal. As an introduction to the project, it was characterized the brief history of the company and its products.
WHY PORTUGAL
With many countries to choose from, Portugal was picked as Tim Horton’s new destination due to being an economically free country, with high average income and human development rate, and for its reputation for being easy to create and do business. Using data from previous years, namely 2017-2019, it was also safe to declare that the country’s GDP was growing at a steady rate.
On a business perspective, Portugal has a good survival rate for new companies / franchises, and it offers incentives for their openings. When it comes to consumers, portuguese are known for its intense love of coffee and its consumption only grows exponentially.
For those reasons and many others, Portugal became a great choice for the expansion of the Tim Horton’s franchises.
SWOT ANALYSIS
CONCLUSION
For the opening of a new franchise in Portugal to be successful, Tim Horton’s should follow a geocentric strategy with a high-touch positioning. Some limitations to this export would include the adaptation of the product’s prices to Portuguese preferences, and it’s recomended that the company should follow through with a deeper analysis of its target audience / country.
You can read the full study in Portuguese here.