Before starting any selection process, the company must decide on the optimum number of markets it will go to. This is a strategic decision that presents two extreme alternatives. concentration or diversification - between which there are different intermediate options.

Concentration, in this strategy, the firm focuses its resources on a limited number of markets, so that it can obtain a continuous and increasing sales volume in each of them. Its has numerous advantages for microentreprises: greater knowledge of the chosen markets, possibility to offer a differentiated and adapted product, reduction of logistics and administration costs.

Diversification, on the contrary, this growth strategy is based on selling on a larger number of markets, even if it is to the detriment of achieving a significant share in some of them. The rationale for this alternative is based, on the following reasons: comparative information on world markets, reduced dependence on a small number of markets, exploitation of short-term competitive advantages, take advantage of economic opportunities in prices.

The main barriers for small businesses:

Limitations of financial resources. The limitations of financial resources can affect various aspects of the company's activity. More directly related to its international activity, the Art&Craft firm needs to have resources to finance its commercial and marketing activities (visit markets, participate in trade fairs and missions, prepare promotional material, etc.).

Lack of prepared managerial staff. The lack of prepared human resources sometimes manifests as many microenterprises do not have staff who speak languages. Today you cannot operate in international markets without having a website in English. It is also necessary to have a minimum knowledge of foreign trade techniques. Internationalization needs to have managers prepared for it, with minimal knowledge of how international markets work.

Difficulty in identifying potential clients or partners and business opportunities in other countries. A lot of information can be obtained through the Internet, but it is necessary to have the ability to study and debug it properly. The lack of preparation of human resources arises again.

Difficulty in obtaining information about foreign markets. On market studies, specific regulations, the Internet has been a great advance in this area. In any case, it remains an area whose importance is often sparsely considered.