The Wall Street Journal issued an article entitled  Divided by Two-Track Economy -- For American business, it has become a two-track economy.

The Wall Street Journal stated that; “While global players like industrial conglomerate 3M Co. and burger giant McDonald's Corp. are getting ever-bigger boosts from their operations in fast-growing economies like China and Brazil, companies dependent on the U.S. market are hemmed in by recession-scarred consumers who are hesitant to spend.

But broadly speaking, demand in the U.S. hasn't been as strong as in the rest of the world. In the second quarter, U.S. gross domestic product was still 1.3% below its peak in late 2007. During the same quarter, global GDP, excluding the U.S., pushed past the previous peak it hit in 2008, according to economists at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Those economists expect economic growth of 9.8% this year in China, 8.3% in India and 7.5% in Brazil.”

The full article is available at

http://topics.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704855104575470202726780746.html

Should you go international in your business? Don’t just answer yes or no without also writing out a list of reasons why versus why not? If you have already looked into this issue as part of your budgeting process, strategic planning, contingency planning, or enterprise risk management processes, pull out those notes and talk to the expert you have access to who has already started work on this option.

Now that you have done an initial review of changing your strategy, use the rest of this article to add some additional possible factors on your go – no go decisions.

Will diversification to foreign markets balance some of the ups and downs you receive if you are US centric only?

Do you need international diversification to hedge against a double dip in the US economy?

Are you best off staying close to home until you decide how turbulent the next few years will be?

What changes would you need to compete internationally in your product, packaging, distribution, and possible even product components and ingredients?

What would the costs of such n expansion be?

Based on this preliminary review, you can either shelf this idea for now, move forward or decide to research the idea more extensively before finalizing your decision.