Hi below is a case study. I just need a few pointers to help me craft an answer

Question

Hi below is a case study. I just need a few pointers to help me craft an answer to this.

You are a VP for business development at a major mining consortia based in the US. You are charged with leading the company's efforts to diversify its product-base and gain entry into new and potentially lucrative international markets. The company's largest portfolio of products includes coal and copper, and the board of directors has been pressing the firm to expand its product line and market share for years. The board and the leadership have targeted a lucrative opportunity in a volatile south Asian country that possesses the world's largest reserve of the particular mineral you need. The country is poor with only 60% literacy and is run by a notoriously corrupt regime. Additionally, the project poses significant environmental risks to local indigenous tribes. While you don't want to be the subject of international protests and you don't feel comfortable about getting into a contract with this particular regime, you feel you have little choice and need to find a way to conduct business in the country. Your Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) manager has suggested that perhaps this represents an opportunity for your firm to define a different business model for entering developing markets.

How might you consider a new way of approaching this type of venture in light of the risks and opportunities?

Explanation / Answer

I used to ask stupid questions like this as 20-something college prof. The real answer is that: a) These opportunities represent reputational risk that spreads to the rest of the company. They are best done by cooperative ventures with companies that don't have reputational risk. b) Nobody with any money or power gives a damn about the indigenous people c) By definition, "notoriously corrupt" regimes don't let profitable things go on in their countries without getting paid and having trees planted and literacy rates improved doesn't do it (geez, the European Union offered nearly $4B in aid to Belarus if they would have fair elections. There were more people protesting unfair elections elections in Minsk being beaten by riot police with truncheons than the govt said voted for the opposition. That's the world we live in) d) The risk isn't just reputational but having your stuff nationalized after you get a profitable enterprise going.

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