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Introduction: The current research is trying to analyze macro environmental factors affecting a company to expand its market to global markets. Each company which targets a foreign country to invest needs to evaluate the macro environmental issues to be more successful in its goal. Hereby Alibaba.com is chosen which is an e-commerce company from China and decided to go global after some significant successes in China market as one of the biggest world markets. The target country is Korea which is a neighbor country for China with a close economical and political relationship which seems to be appropriate for Alibaba to go throw its market.

2. A look on Company Alibaba.com founded by Jack ma in Hangzhou, china. The main focus of alibaba.com is on B2B E-commerce launching its job in China and South Korea, Alibaba is the 5th most valuable internet-based company in the world, And also the largest one in Asia. The company has earned 83.6 M$ revenue in 2008. Alibaba has 7 subsidiary companies which are involved in the business of B2B, C2C, online payments, software service, search engine, online advertising, local living, and consumption community.

3. Macro Environmental Factors: Each company looking for development and revenue boosting seeks global markets to expand its revenue thus; it needs to analyze the environment before setting any strategy or launching any decision. In order to reach to a point of view of what is going on in tense rivalry of todays world company needs to use some methods to analyze the situation. PEST analysis is one of the most

common analyses in marketing and strategy which provides a complete information and look for any company seeking new markets globally. PEST is an abbreviation made of four words being analyzed by which. Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, Technological are the four issues being evaluated by PEST method. Political issues are a matter of concern in international marketing since companies need to now the target markets rules and laws to respect them and adopt themselves to them in order to start their job better and support their success in where. Social and Cultural issues are in another category to analyze target country people. Obviously companies need to know a countries people and their culture and origins to know what to offer and how to offer their products and services in an appropriate way. Technological trends are needed to be understood to know potentials and limits of a country which is target. It is to understand whether the primary technologies, experiences, experts and other necessary factors are available or not to start a particular job. When all these issues where evaluated a company may decide whether to go or not to go to a particular countries market.

3.1.Political/legal; Based on a Ministry of Knowledge Economy of Korea statistics, the foreign direct investment in Korea boosted to $10 billion in 2010 showing a 7% growth from earlier year in first eleven months of year. It was mostly service sector which was targeted by foreign countries showing a great environment for Alibaba to operate in Korea. It was all because of governments supports and promotions encouraging firms to consider Korea as a high rank developing country. Obviously even conflicts with North Korea did not have a negative effect on South Korea growth screening a powerful political support for foreign firms. Another issue putting South Korea in a winner place is its Free Trade Pact with US which shows a powerful political wish to enhance Korean industry globally. This is what a company like Alibaba needs to prove its capabilities. The political environment in Korea is positively developing for all industries. However, since the country is not developed appropriately in E-commerce, companies such as Alibaba which opt to use internet are facing some limits. In fact, country leaders are aware of the current unintegration that is a field of improvement of SMEs. Thus, aiming to enlighten future horizon for country growth South Korea is likely to continue to invest in internet infrastructure in order to improve the standards of living of their respective populations as well as to become more globally competitive. Political and legal internet factors play a critical role in e-commerce marketing activities. South Korea tries hard to seem a stable country in both political and economical fields and it is obvious in its GDP which has growth rather than loss although having recent serious political issues with North Korea which is a positive sign for FDI.

3.2.Socio-Cultural; Culture can significantly influence the management practices. Culture develops even taking several hundred (or thousand) years of lifetime. In order to enter South Korea, one must pay attention to the countrys population and demographic information as well as cultural issues. Initially, South Koreas culture has been influenced by its neighboring country, China. Countrys culture has been affected and changed by urbanization and internationalization. In fact, changing lifestyle has led the centralization of population in urban cities particularly, the capital city of Seoul. The structure of family has changed from multi-generational households separating into nuclear family living arrangements. From a business point of view, South Korean culture shows proper respect and evades causing loss and the state of morale is high in this rich culture. There are several factors influenced the emergence of South Korean culture arising from Confucian values. Confucianism has played a major role in shaping the values and ethics. However, it has not necessarily had a positive influence in the society particularly in the economy and economic activity. Confucian values have disparaged commerce. Thus, lack of

commercial activity discouraged innovation. Confucian values cherish intellectuals. It means that Confucianism has a great attention to high level of learning and it values education. All in all, Korea is a fast developing country looking for modern fields to enhance its growth, although SMEs in Korea are not using e-commerce like what developed countries do yet, they opt to handle the case by upgrading their capabilities and adopting themselves by new cultural correlations. Alibaba is from a country with close and old cultural relation with Korea which helps managers to understand the environment and achieve appropriate strategies gaining success. Work ethics in South Korea are shown in following figure.

The technological trend of evaluating e-commerce is internet penetration rate in each country which regarding to Korea it is more than 65% while it is 12% in china. It is almost same as many developed countries like Japan and US based on international published reports. Indeed, communication channels are vaster in Korea rather than China so Alibaba will be more comfortable using internet communications and e-commerce in Korea. South Korea is advancing in many cases such as IT, internet, telecommunications, E-commerce so boundaries for companies are diminishing. SMEs are active in both product innovation and process innovation and it is a positive sign of development so far. One of concerns in this case is low awareness of E-commerce by South Korean companies which was seen in a recent research. Due the fact that Alibaba needs to trade with companies throw internet, it has to set some strategies to overcome this problem. Making joint ventures would be helpful in this case to handle the Korean market to create growth opportunity. This was expected to have a large impact and allow the companies to integrate and join forces with their combined resources that will with time lead to growth. Innovated technology is mostly developed in-house, followed by collaborative R&D, and imported technology. Other technological issues are not as important as internet quality and its penetration rate due to ALIBABAS nature and its operation in Korea however, Korea is a modern Asian country comparing to others which helps Alibaba to set its aim.

3.3.Economic; Koreans have demonstrated their strength and commitment by joining the leadership in international markets by many measures. We see an opportunity for them to grow even stronger in the global market through online channels. said Alibabas CEO David Wei. Comparing China with average growth of 10% for the past 30 years is a gigantic field to a company to develop and Korea which is has the worlds 15th GDP rate which is a considerable and significant rate for an Asian country, shows a great potential in economic growth in relationship between to countries. Korea has a close friendship with US too which encourages government to play a significant role in Asia. Korea seeks low labor cost of China to produce its goods and export it to global markets. All these said, Alibaba will connect Korea industry with China industry and be successful in this case. In an active market there is always a need of supply and resources via end market and customer. This is what Alibaba is going to do. Innovated technology is mostly developed in-house, followed by collaborative R&D, and imported technology. Indeed, integrating the suppliers and buyers in an active economy is the most needed service. On the other hand, in small scale, SMEs in Korea face limits to find resources for sales and marketing and need an inter-functional company to handle the case. Their size does not let them seek for cheaper available resources and greater markets so Alibaba operates as a link inbetween and provide the necessary services successfully. It will help both sides to benefit so an integrated market connection appears and benefits Alibaba not only in short run but also in long run just by keeping costumers satisfied. Followed by it Alibaba has some goals to capture as well: 1. Expansion of markets world wide for exports.

2. Increases in the supply of exports into others markets. 3. Competition in third markets. 4. Expansion of investment in China and, potentially, outward foreign investment from China. Alibaba has a great potential to connect China market and Korea market which has high effect on global market and US as well. Korea can use low price China labor cost to produce its goods and export it to Europe and US which will be beneficial for both sides.

3.3.1. Global Trends Based on Korean law Tax Incentives are provided, in case of FDI f the foreign company or investor meets the requirements to receive tax incentives as stipulated in the regulations for tax reduction and exemption for foreign investments in FIPA. Businesses eligible for tax incentives have to be in the hi-tech or industry-supporting service business in order to receive a reduction or exemption from national or local tax for a specified period of time. Since Alibaba is categorized in high-tech companies based on what is said in Korean Law, it will have benefits of lower tax rate and even tax exemptions by fulfilling some basic issues required by government. It is meant to be one further advantage for Alibaba to invest in South Korean market. E-commerce is a field for SMEs to have more power to focus on global imports and exports. If e-commerce serves SMEs in an efficient way as a result is product demand will change provided that the global market will boost. Thus, understanding of business practices should be broadened and level of services to attract consumers in different countries should be enhanced. Globalization will lead companies such as Alibaba to more integrated markets while the China Price accelerating price competitiveness. All in all, the global market especially South Korea will be open to Alibaba if expansion of markets in China for exports happens. As a result it increases in the supply of exports into others markets. Then it is time to competition in third markets. By an appropriate strategy expansion of investment in China and, potentially, outward foreign investment from China will be possible. Another of Alibabas main strategies involves capitalizing on its international consumer base and driving a large successful marketplace between businesses. The companys leaders have

shown that they know how to seize market opportunities and to expand its strategy to the small and medium sized enterprises (SME) economic growth throughout Asia, USA, Europe and South America. In order to achieve this, the company uses its strengths. The combination of Eastern wisdom, western operational techniques and international capital invested in the global market reflect the power that this company manages to maintain its advantage over the rivals.

4. Summary Alibaba.com is the greatest world E-commerce company which looks for global markets one of which is South Korea. South Korea has the worlds 15th GDP rank in the world and has a close economical relationship with both China and US as the worlds first and second giant economics. Launching Alibabas service to Korea is a successful strategy which Jack Ma has maid as it is explained in current research. All in all, it seems to be a beneficial and successful decision regarding macro environmental issues to offer Alibaba.coms services to Korea market.

5. References:

1.http://www.internetworldstats.com/top10.htm 2.http://www.tradeb2b.net/top/ 3.http://www.Wolframalfa.com 4.http://www.google.com

5.http://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/kr-south_korea.html