"WHERE IN THE WORLD....?"

So, you are sitting in your newly decorated office admiring your framed degree from Fontbonne University in St. Louis, on one of your newly painted office walls when.....suddenly..... your quiet contemplation is shattered by the annoying sound of your new boss chewing....yes chewing.... on a large chocolaty Milky Way candy bar. You look at him (or her) with some sense of derision as you personally prefer the nutty taste of a Snickers bar, (and you also recognize that this sweet treat could have been made with the help of child labor!) but you are polite (and you don't want to be fired from your job), so you ask "what can I help you with."

"Well," says your boss," we have this new idea on how to make some more money for the company. The owner is convinced that we can turn a huge profit by carefully partnering with different companies around the globe and strategically locating new factories in the countries that are best suited to build."

Your boss continues, " the owner wants to know what we need to do to find the best locations in the world for our new product lines, and since YOU are a recent graduate, we figure YOU are the person who knows the most and can figure it out."

The products are listed below:

1) Poly-carbon blades for wind turbines, weighing less than 20 pounds each

2) Calibrating equipment for measuring the flow of water in hydro-electric power plants

Your boss asks the following questions and says he (or she) needs it back quickly so your ideas (that will soon become those of your boss!) can be presented to the owner.

1) What is it called when you purchase equipment and factory space in a foreign country?

2) What kinds of qualifiers do we need to pursue placement of the two products above? In other words, what kind of people do we need and what kind of considerations do we need to make in selecting the proper country in which to place our factory a.k.a. what are the comparative advantages of countries you are searching for?

3) What is the difference between indirect and direct exporting? What advantages would you think are present in exporting your product to a country rather than building a plant there?