Qualtrics: Rapid International Expansion

In May 2015, Qualtrics was a rapidly growing U.S.-based software-as-a-service firm, founded in 2002. After 10 years of operating with little capital, Qualtrics raised some venture capital funding, which enabled it to initiate a rapid international expansion. The management team intended to aggressively pursue global opportunities, but first needed to make some key decisions regarding how to develop the companys Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) regional headquarters, and its European operations. Key concerns included the companys market selection and prioritization, and its best approach for developing a subsidiary and EMEA regional operations that could achieve significant scale in a short time frame. Learning Objective: This case is suitable for a unit on internationalization in undergraduate and graduate courses in international business, international management, global strategy, and entrepreneurship. Students should have a firm grounding in the basics of internationalization. After completing the case, they should be able todescribe the entrepreneurial models of rapid international expansion;discuss the elements associated with the market selection and prioritization process; anddiscuss the challenges of developing substantial subsidiary and international operations within a condensed period of time, and derive suitable recommendations.In May 2015, Qualtrics was a rapidly growing U.S.-based software-as-a-service firm, founded in 2002. After 10 years of operating with little capital, Qualtrics raised some venture capital funding, which enabled it to initiate a rapid international expansion. The management team intended to aggressively pursue global opportunities, but first needed to make some key decisions regarding how to develop the companys Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) regional headquarters, and its European operations. Key concerns included the companys market selection and prioritization, and its best approach for developing a subsidiary and EMEA regional operations that could achieve significant scale in a short time frame. Learning Objective: This case is suitable for a unit on internationalization in undergraduate and graduate courses in international business, international management, global strategy, and entrepreneurship. Students should have a firm grounding in the basics of internationalization. After completing the case, they should be able todescribe the entrepreneurial models of rapid international expansion;discuss the elements associated with the market selection and prioritization process; anddiscuss the challenges of developing substantial subsidiary and international operations within a condensed period of time, and derive suitable recommendations.