All of these items had to be signed off centrally, translated into six languages, approved by the local manager, typeset, proof read, printed, and then delivered to the eight CA offices and 32 distributors, with sufficient stocks for inventory.

The monthly product roll out deadline was, rightly, completely unforgiving. Any faltering and the whole schedule would have lost credibility with customers and with the European managers. However, the benefit was that every manager and distributor had a list of the products which were due to be featured, worldwide, each month.

They knew that an ad would appear in the leading IT weeklies in eight countries; that press releases and case studies would be sent to publications in eight countries, and would be available for them as collateral, and eventually as press cuttings; that a newsletter and mailing piece would be sent to the corporate database and extra copies would be made available for local mailings. And all these communications would focus on one product, with a single set of key messages which were co-ordinated across the world.

The crucial factor is that the managers and distributors were free to go out and just sell, sell, sell. There was no cold calling because CA was extremely visible via the ads, press coverage, central and local mailings. If the managers wanted to devise some local promotion they could do so, but they knew that if they did they were taking their eye off the sales. They occasionally ran seminars and these were very successful because of CA's visibility. Whilst the implementation of the plan was challenging, the sales that flowed were relatively easy. And that's how SG defines a good marketing plan.

To any prospect, across the world, CA appeared as a world class company that was way ahead of its competitors in recognising that its customers were global. Most importantly, the eight country managers and 32 distributors were fed with a regular supply of enquiries, their prospect pipeline was jam packed and so CA went on to thrive.

It was no mean task. One can imagine the problems involved in the production of just one newsletter in six languages, with photographs not arriving and then failing to have the correct captions, not to mention translations arriving (or more often not arriving!) at greatly increased length, which involved massive problems when trying to print six different language newsletters at the same time. The good news is that these problems made the task of researching and writing material pale into insignificance!

Compromises had to be made. For example, the ads were quite simple - product title, key messages and an abstract graphic which represented what the tool did. They would never win prizes, but they were effective and consistent across the world, they communicated the key messages, they looked professional - we were selling to serious minded IT managers, and they were translated for local use.

At any time over 200 items were in production and as CA had not achieved its meteoric status many of the tasks were complicated by the need to save money. For example, typesetting was done in house by French speakers, printing was normally done in France or America, mailings were done from Holland, translations were done all over the world.

SG's advice to companies new to the global market is to 'get it 80% right, but out there', so the honing process can start while you are selling and gaining market share.