Authors : Jihyun Kim, Jaehyun Han and Sukjae Jeong
Abstract: The primary objective of the traditional arms industry was to focus on strengthening domestic military strength. Accordingly, most of the relevant researches have focused on development and evaluation of core weapons technologies. Relying solely on domestic demands greatly limits the possibility of the arms industry’s growth. Furthermore, global financial crisis and military budget cuts are compelling the companies to seek broader markets. However, significant distinction from general export as well as both the competitiveness and high entrance barrier of the global arms trade makes such endeavor demanding. Such adversity necessitates dissimilar studies that will focus on evaluating the feasibility of exporting weapon systems and identifying promising markets. This study presents a three-step analytical procedure that combines both quantitative and qualitative approaches to address this issue, selection of buying power indices and evaluation of competing weapons systems, two-phase screening for selecting promising countries using both quantitative and qualitative analyses and final selection of target countries by utilizing the Bruce Merrifield-Ohe (BMO) Method. The proposed research is evaluated by applying the proposed procedure to two actual weapon system export cases in Republic of Korea with opposite results a success and a failure.
Jihyun Kim, Jaehyun Han and Sukjae Jeong, 2019. Strategic Market Selection for Exporting Weapon Systems: Korean Case. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 14: 1374-1387.