Exporting to China and ASEAN countries： Perceived advancement in marketing competencies and export performance

Malaysians firms have made inroads into the non-traditional export markets. Such ventures are expected to result in increased knowledge about the marketing systems that are posited to be different from the traditional export markets. This paper reports on the perceived improvement in marketing competencies of Malaysian exporters. The results of data analysis show that there are five dimensions of marketing competency. In ranking order, segmenting and targeting competency is ranked highest followed by product management, export management, product differentiation and promotion. Multiple regression analysis was performed to test the explanatory power of each marketing competency on export performance of firms exporting to China and ASEAN countries. The result revealed that none of the marketing competency explained the variation in export performance for the China market. However, among exporters in ASEAN countries, it was noted that promotion competency resulted in a negative impact on both measures of export performance. Product competency is positively associated with financial measure of export performance. Competencies in segmenting and targeting, and export management are positively associated with non-financial performance.