Americans want to conquer the European print market and while “conquer” may be a bit of an exaggeration, it’s interesting to see how U.S. companies are striving to gain a piece of a market that is more than twice the size of the U.S.’s and, in general, represents an economy comparable to the U.S. The companies interested in Europe range from vendors like AMS Spectral UV, EFI, Xerox, and many more, to organizations like Idealliance and Keypoint Intelligence, and media outlets like WhatTheyThink.com. All are gaining ground, but does Europe present a challenge, and, if so, why?

Although Europe and the U.S. have a lot in common, there are huge differences, and perhaps one of the challenges Americans need to address is the fact that most Europeans don’t see Europe as one single market. Not only are there are more than 20 different languages, but cultures across the continent are tremendously different. The political environments can also be very different, and even the ways that companies incorporate and operate can be unique to individual countries. There are also north/south and east/west axes that are important to consider when doing business in Europe.

Since the end of World War II, Europe developed first the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) which morphed (largely) into the European Economic Community (EEC), and the latest, the European Union (EU), is not even close to being a federal republic like the U.S. Some countries are republics, some are still monarchies, and all have strong local governments and substantial resistance from their citizens to become part of a single “European” state or country. Most people see Europe as a convenient way to trade, to ensure a higher level of equality when it comes to competition both within the EU and against both the U.S. and of course China. This is important to understand for American companies, mainly because I often hear Americans talking about going to “Europe” as if it were one country.