Aim:

This study shows that the foundation of success when entering a new market with a new brand name is to focus on the long term building of relationships and personal networks. This has also shown to be a good strategy during an economical recession that recently has been over the last two years.

To gain a competitive advantage in a market one has to be present and interact with the market. When competition increases with market threats from countries far away one has to stand out, be different, from your competitors. Relationship marketing and networking could for this reason be a good strategy because being local and visible makes the entry barriers higher for new entrants that are geographically located somewhere else in the world. 3

The downside of relationship marketing is that it‘s hard to use conventional advertisement because building a network of new relations with customers etcetera will take long time because a relation is build with personal interaction between two parties. One can say that when entering a market with a new brand the person that acts in a brand name is more important than the brand name itself because you have a relationship with persons not with brand names.

Suggestions for future research:

As years go by everything changes. Therefore the development of relationship marketing in the future could be an interesting case to study. When the economical situation now changes from recession to a positive trend this could be such a change to analyse in a study.

Another interesting research might be to evaluate the situation in other countries. Is relationship marketing equally important as it is in Sweden today or does its‘ importance change in accordance to what country you analyze?

At last, one can analyze if it is a different situation when entering a new market with a new brand if you work with traditionally employed personnel than it is when working with self-employed organizations. If one is to enter a market with traditionally employees are there other strategies that are successful or is relationship marketing important as well?

Contribution of the thesis:

This study could be useful for entrepreneurs that seek new ways of gaining success in a market. It has pointed out the advantages of relationship marketing and networking and has shown it could be really successful in practice. I strongly believe on the importance of building relationships within all business areas. Being part of a world that more and more goes toward virtual interaction and increased competition within all areas, both local and worldwide, relationships could be a key to success.