What International Expansion Teaches You About Execution

There’s a particular kind of humility that comes from taking a business into a market you don’t fully understand yet. Your assumptions get tested fast. The competitive dynamics are different. The regulatory environment has surprises. The customers want something slightly — or significantly — different from what you expected.

I’ve been through this process multiple times across the Americas, and the lesson I keep coming back to is deceptively simple: the quality of your execution matters more than the quality of your strategy.

Strategy is necessary but not sufficient

Don’t get me wrong — you need a strategy. You need to understand the market size, the competitive landscape, the regulatory requirements, the channel dynamics. You need a clear answer to “why this market, why now, and why us.”

But I’ve seen brilliant market entry strategies fail because the team executing them didn’t adapt fast enough. And I’ve seen mediocre strategies succeed because the team on the ground was responsive, resourceful, and ruthlessly focused on learning.

What good execution looks like in a new market

Short feedback loops. The gap between “we think this will work” and “here’s what actually happened” needs to be as short as possible. Weekly, not quarterly.

Local knowledge, not just local presence. Hiring a country manager isn’t the same as understanding the market. You need people who can tell you what the data won’t — the unwritten rules, the relationship dynamics, the cultural subtleties that affect buying decisions.

Permission to deviate. If the team in-market has to get headquarters approval for every tactical adjustment, you’ll move too slowly. Define the guardrails, then give people room to operate within them.

Honest reporting. The most dangerous thing in international expansion is a team that tells headquarters what it wants to hear. Create an environment where bad news travels fast and lessons get shared openly.

The connection to everything else

These principles — short feedback loops, local knowledge, operational autonomy, honest reporting — aren’t unique to international expansion. They apply to any complex execution challenge. But there’s something about crossing borders that strips away the comfortable assumptions and forces you to confront them.

That’s why I think international experience is such valuable preparation for consulting work broadly. It teaches you to hold your own frameworks loosely and pay attention to what’s actually happening on the ground.