International expansion of a company operating in the coffee sector

The aim of this master thesis is to evaluate the strategies and processes of a selected retail company and to propose a method of entering a foreign market based on a literature review and analysis of the business environment in the domestic and selected foreign markets. Secondary research is used to accomplish the objective of the thesis, with the main sources being thematic academic articles, annual reports and statistical data. At the same time, various analytical tools such as 7P analysis, SWOT, PESTEL as well as Porter's five forces analysis are applied throughout the thesis. The thesis itself is then divided into two main chapters. The first deals with theoretical insights in the field of international expansion and the example of IKEA's successful expansion into the Chinese market and Tesco's unsuccessful expansion into the Japanese market. The second consists of an analysis of Kofio, selected foreign markets and the design of the international expansion strategy itself. The markets analysed in this case are Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Austria. Using a scoring model that takes into account predetermined criteria, the Slovak market was evaluated as the most suitable for expansion, which was then subjected to a PESTEL analysis and Porter's five forces analysis. Based on the results, the establishment of a brick-and-mortar store was chosen as the most optimal method. There is also a high probability that this strategy will be applied to real international expansion. Considering this fact, the thesis also mentions suggestions for further research, which consist in a slight adaptation of the company's strategies and also of the different parts of the marketing mix, especially then the communication mix.