Cost Reductions and Local Responsiveness
Choosing the most appropriate strategy for a firm in international business involves two essential dimensions. The firm must examine ways to reduce costs, which can be done in a number of ways. Standardization of products and components plays a very important part. Customers, however, don't always want standardized products, even if it means they will pay more.
The balance a firm seeks between the pressures for cost reduction and local responsiveness is one of the most essential determinants of the firm's strategy.
Pressures for local responsiveness imply that it may not be possible for a firm to realize the full benefits from economies of scale, learning effects, and location economies. The need to customize a product offering may work against a strategy of producing a standardized product made in a single, low-cost location. Customization may bring benefits but it limits the ability of a firm to realize significant scale and location economies. In addition, pressures for local responsiveness imply that it may not be possible to leverage skills and products associated with a firm's core competencies from country to country without additional changes.
The appropriateness of the four main strategic postures-global standardization, localization, translational with the extent of the pressures for cost reductions and local responsiveness .
As the balance between cost reduction and local responsiveness affects strategy you must know each thoroughly.
Read the points below and determine if it represents a pressure for cost reductions or local responsiveness
1. Differences in Infrastructure
2. Differences in Preferences
3. Outsourcing
4. Universal Needs
5. Distribution Channels
6. Optimal Location
7. Host Government Demands
8. Experience Curve
Pressure for cost reductions Pressure for local responsiveness

Local responsiveness to international strategies arises from differences in customer preferences, differences in traditional practices and infrastructure, differences in distribution channels, and from host government demands. The rest, including the need for outsourcing, meeting universal needs, finding optimal locations, and gaining from experience curves, originate from the entity's efforts to reduce costs of products and services for market competitiveness.