What it is and what problem it solves
When a company sells in more than one market, it usually makes one of two mistakes. The first is copying the plan: what worked in Spain gets applied in the Dominican Republic, or the other way around, with little more than new prices. The second is the opposite: each market invents its own plan, and a year later nothing is comparable and nobody knows what works.
The local layer fixes both. The method is shared: the thesis, the segmentation criteria, the action sheets, the baseline and the committee. The layer documents, market by market, the four variables that do change. The deliverable is one adaptation of the same playbook per market.
The local layer is built with the people who sell in the market: the client's sales team, its distributors and the third parties who execute. We bring the method and direct it remotely, on the agreed cadence.
When to use it and when not to
It is used when the same offer is sold in two or more markets, when a company enters a new market, particularly between the Dominican Republic and Spain, and when an agency serves clients in both. It also applies within one country: selling in Santo Domingo is not selling in the Cibao, and one Spanish city's branch office doesn't buy at the same pace as another's.
It isn't a local layer when the segment or the product changes. If the ideal customer is different, you are not adapting. You are looking at a different strategy, and you have to go back to the diagnostic. The test is this: if the change touches the one-page thesis, it doesn't belong in the local layer.
How it is built
- Fix the core. What doesn't change in any market: thesis, segmentation criteria, action sheet structure and North Star metric. Deliverable: signed list of invariants.
- Vocabulary. How the buyer names the problem, which words they use and which sound foreign to them. Deliverable: glossary per market.
- Decision-makers. The decision-maker map is redone in each market; job titles look alike and real power doesn't. Deliverable: local decision-maker map.
- Channel. How the product reaches the decision-maker, and the margin and role of each link. Deliverable: channel map.
- Buying rhythm. Seasonality, budget cycle, usual decision and payment timelines. Deliverable: local commercial calendar.
- Carry-over to the sheets. Which fields of each action sheet change: owner, cost, date or executor. Deliverable: local sheets linked to the shared sheet.
- Comparable indicators. Same definitions, a baseline of its own in each market. Deliverable: one baseline per market with shared definitions.
Anatomy of the deliverable
The local layer is delivered as one table per market. This template contrasts two common client markets. The market columns are starting patterns we see often, not conclusions: every row is validated with the client's team and with whoever sells there.
| Variable | What gets documented | Dominican Republic (starting pattern) | Spain (starting pattern) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vocabulary | The buyer's and the industry's words | “Mercadeo” is the usual term; “marketing” is understood as a synonym | “Marketing estratégico,” “estrategia comercial,” “playbook de ventas” |
| Decision-makers | Who decides, influences, blocks and pays | In family business groups the decision tends to sit with the owning family; management influences | In small companies the managing director decides; in mid-sized ones sales, procurement and finance carry weight |
| Channel | How the product reaches the decision-maker | Traditional trade of colmados, wholesalers and distributors, alongside the modern trade of supermarkets; in tourism and free trade zones, corporate purchasing with its own processes | Direct sales organized by branch offices, regional distributors and key accounts; exports as a separate channel |
| Buying rhythm | When and how fast people buy | Tourist seasons and holidays set the calendar; prior personal trust often weighs on the decision | Annual budget cycle, reduced activity in August in many sectors, and fiscal year-end |
| Invariants | What doesn't change | Thesis, segments, sheets and North Star metric | Thesis, segments, sheets and North Star metric |
The risk is in the cells that look the same. Because both markets speak Spanish, the mistake is easier to make: a shared language hides differences in vocabulary, hierarchy and channel that nobody would miss in a market with another language.
The classic framework: glocalization
Glocalization sums up the idea of shared strategy and local execution. The term comes from Japanese business practice and was popularized by the sociologist Roland Robertson in the 1990s. It was, in part, a response to Theodore Levitt's argument in “The Globalization of Markets” (1983): that companies should sell standardized products worldwide.
The principle is right. The problem is that it doesn't say what is global and what is local, so each market negotiates everything. In marketing, it also degenerated into adapting the campaign: copy, images, the odd message. Meanwhile the decision-makers and the channel, which is where the sale is won or lost, went untouched.
Our adaptation makes it operational. Four variables are local and everything else is shared. If a market needs to change something in the core, the local manager doesn't decide it. They take it to the period committee with their data.
Common mistakes
- Mistaking the local layer for translation. It happens when the adaptation is done by whoever produces the materials. The words change and the decision-makers and channel don't.
- Letting the local layer touch the thesis. Each market's manager wants their own plan, and that is understandable. Allow it, and a year later there are as many strategies as markets.
- Metrics that can't be compared. Each market defines “active customer” its own way. The fix is to set the definitions in the core.
- Treating a country as one block. One layer per country is built for convenience, when the real difference lies between regions or branch offices.
An illustrative scenario
Take a hypothetical Spanish company that makes hospitality equipment, sells through branch offices in Spain and wants to enter the Dominican Republic, where its natural buyers are hotel chains and industry distributors.
The thesis and the offer ladder don't change. The local layer does. On vocabulary, the proposal talks about mercadeo and uses the local industry's product names. On decision-makers, the team has to confirm whether each hotel decides the purchase or the chain's head office does. On channel, the choice is between an importer and local distributor or direct sales. On rhythm, high tourist season is a bad time to install, so the sale moves earlier.
The product demo sheet changes its executor, which becomes the local distributor, and its date. Everything else is measured with the same definitions as in Spain. We go deeper in go-to-market in the Dominican Republic and, for the reverse route, in multi-market launch strategy.