aQmen’s tried and tested road map enables Canadian companies to break into foreign markets

Toronto, June 23, 2010

A Canadian entrepreneur who has led the global launch of a key, new product for one of America’s best-known brands has rolled his knowledge and success into the development of a road map that will help Canadian companies establish a footprint in international markets.

The road map is the iSMARTE™ Framework and is the brainchild of Qamar Rizvi, the founder and president of Toronto-based aQmen Inc, a boutique management firm that provides clients with a turnkey solution for international expansion. The road map is detailed in an article in the current issue of the Ivey Business Journal, the management publication of the Ivey Business School (www.iveybusinessjournal.com).

“When it comes to breaking into international markets, Canadian managers and executives are held back by a fear of failure,” says Rizvi, who previously worked abroad for The Gillette Company, where he was the regional director for 13 Asia-Mid-East markets and was part of a management team that led the global launch of the MACH3 razor in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

“To a large extent, Canadians’ hesitancy about foreign markets is understandable,” says Rizvi, who advises Canadian SMEs, entrepreneurs and major corporations on how to expand. “Many of them have spent most of their lives in North America and find that doing business in foreign countries takes them out of their comfort zone. At the same time, there is a pent-up demand in management suites to tap new markets, if only those same managers could know how.”

The iSMARTE™ framework, which Rizvi developed after retracing his life and work experiences across thirty plus countries and three continents, consists of four stages and ten steps. Each stage and step is finely detailed, and if followed as laid out, Rizvi claims that a client can establish a footprint in a foreign market within 12-20 months. “iSMARTE™ was conceived to build know-how, not knowledge,” says Rizvi. “The distinction is critical. Knowledge is helpful, but it only tells you the ‘why,’ whereas know-how tells you the ‘how,’ How an international opportunity applies to you, and how you can capitalize. iSMARTE™ is based entirely on experience and everyone who has followed the framework has been able to break in to foreign markets.”