The company gains the majority of its profits from exporting its product – lobsters. Maine Coast Company is an experienced actor in the industry and realizes the global tendencies in terms of demand for its production. Lobsters are extremely popular in foreign countries that have limited access to marine resources and have relatively significant GDP.
Taking into account the abovementioned facts, Maine Coast Company established its supply chain with the orientation of international trade and export. Through the years, the latter has been the foundation for the corporation’s business processes that have developed into a coherent and unified system. It would take too much time, effort, and resources to re-orientate the strategic direction towards the solely domestic market.
At the initial stages of the company’s development, it could decide to focus only on the domestic market and satisfy the need of the American consumers. However, it was clear that the expansion approach would contribute to a considerable corporation’s growth and development in the long run, which would result in great profit margins.
Hence, Maine Coast Company had the opportunity to remain a domestic player without any substantial danger to its functioning and survival. Nevertheless, it could face a state of stagnation, stop its development, and lose many profitable options within the international scope.
The company was a well-known exporter to China up till the recent trade dispute forced the Chinese to levy a 32 percent tariff on imported American lobster. This product was largely imported from Maine. It became unreasonable to continue to export to China, so Maine Coast Company had to figure out an appropriate strategic move.
The company had to shift its export routes towards other foreign countries in which demand for lobsters would be significant. Particularly, Maine Coast Company started to export its products to the EU states, as well as intensified trade with Asian countries such as Vietnam.