The Industry-focused International Strategy: Prevalence and Profile

• Many firms facing low-cost international competition can reposition into niches. This study examines one such niche: industry-focused international firms, defined as companies that produce, sell, and expand internationally within one industry. Analysis of the global pharmaceutical industry finds a group comprising of about 20 % of the firms that pursue this strategy. This strategy is distributed internationally, but not uniformly. • It is relatively more prevalent among firms based in emerging countries compared to industrialized nations. These firms invest in R&D in order to create deep specialized expertise that they exploit internationally.