Those development trends of the economies and direction systems are important signals for the strategies of Western companies having or planning business contacts with the COMECON countries and their enterprises. Finally the paper recommends some new views and attitudes to the strategy designers of Western companies to make profitable propositions in the long-run both for the Eastern and for the Western partners.
George Bush is charged by the executives of MASHINDUSTRY with the task of informing them about the "rules of the game", permitting him to reveal the business possibilities of the enterprise on the markets of the COMECON-countries. George relies on various information sources for the survey, on the basis of which he outlines some of the characteristic features of the economic life and the planned economic system of the East-European countries. Then he makes a tour in these countries and examines, on the basis of his experiences, the factors and relationships in turn, influencing the possible success of the marketing actions of MASHINDUSTRY. In this framework he takes into account also the organisations, suited to reveal the value of the various factors and their effects on the economy of the COMECON countries.
The case study summarizes the basic conceptions, advantages, risks and most important facts of the cooperation of ICI and a Hungarian company, TVM. After stressing the importance and sketching the types of international industrial cooperations, the Hungarian company is introduced and its main strategic aims are presented. New marketing methods have been used by the Hungarian company in the "selecting the partner" phase of the cooperation as well as in the phase of "detailed discussions with the potencial partner". Data about the contract and the realization are followed by the enumeration of experiences gained during the period 1974-78 and by the possibilities of the development of the ICI-TVM cooperation in the 80s. By this the efficiency of an east-west cooperation and of the used marketing methods are jointly proved too.
On the basis of forecasts the United States were expected to introduce import restrictions for the protection of its home market. In this way the Japanese textile export could be deflected to the West-European markets, where the Hungarian exporters would be forced by the new competitor to take strategical decisions. The managers of the Hungarian textile industry sponsored the elaboration of a forecasting model, which 1. describes the process of the expectable events; 2. determines the values of the economic and marketing factors, where the process starts; 3. controls, if the Hungarian enterprises are capable to follow up the course of these factors and 4. to conceive and realise their new marketing strategy from the date of the appearance of the values until the European market situation is changing. The usefulness of the model has been verified by the past economical processes.
Some ideas will be discussed on the marketing research related to the East-West industrial cooperation of Companies in the West - with detailed knowledge on the situation and characteristics of the potential East partners. In the course of discussion four sequential planning stages of marketing research will be distinguished: 1. Survey and weighting of advantages and risks; 2. Survey of macro-economical and company "background"; 3. The complex analysis of advantages, risks and company "background" and 4. Planning the marketing research of the West company.