Before you choose a market, measure your company: production, quality, finance, team and paperwork. The distance between what you have and what the buyer requires is your gaps, and the plan is born from closing them.
Goal: Calculate your export capacity and the working capital of a first order, and rank your company's gaps as critical, important or desirable.
An internationalization plan does not start in the market: it starts in your company. The diagnosis is an X-ray of what you have today, of what a buyer abroad will require of you and of the distance between the two. That distance is called a gap. In topic 1-3 you did a quick test of your export capacity. Here you turn it into a document with evidence, which will be the basis of the whole plan.
Review six areas. Production: your installed capacity (the most your plant can produce in a period), your idle capacity (the part you do not use today) and whether quality is stable from batch to batch. Quality and compliance: health registrations, certifications and traceability. Finance: cash, credit and working capital. Commercial: technical sheet, material in the buyer's language and experience with customers abroad. Management: who leads the project and how much time they give it. Paperwork and logistics: active RUC, SUNAT SOL key and transport providers.
Idle capacity is not all of your exportable capacity. First subtract what you already sell to your current customers and a safety reserve (for example, 10% of capacity) for failures and demand peaks. What is left is your exportable capacity: installed capacity minus committed production minus reserve. If you calculate it wrongly, an order from abroad will make you fail your local customer, and a supplier that fails to deliver loses both markets. In agriculture, do it by season: supply changes with the harvest.
Exporting lengthens the cash cycle. You produce, prepare documents, ship, wait for transit and only then get paid, sometimes 30 or 60 days after shipment. Working capital is the money you must have tied up from the moment you buy inputs until you are paid. The financial gap is the difference between that amount and the cash you can really commit to the order. How it is financed and how you get paid is covered in the course on Finance, Costs and Payment Methods.
A good diagnosis ends in a prioritized list of gaps. Classify them as critical (they prevent the first sale, such as a missing registration or not having cash for the order), important (they affect price or competitiveness, such as a certification that your target buyer asks for) and desirable (they improve your image, such as a website in English). For each one, note the cause, action, cost, deadline and owner. Back each finding with evidence: records, tests, real costs. And ask someone with export experience to review it: they see blind spots that you do not.
| Area | What you review | Evidence you must have | Common gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production | Installed capacity, idle capacity and stable quality | Production records for the last 6 to 12 months | Capacity already committed to local customers |
| Quality and compliance | Records, certifications and traceability by batch | Health registration, laboratory tests, batch sheets | A certification the buyer asks for that you do not have |
| Finance | Cash, credit and working capital for the first order | Projected cash flow and real cost per unit | Not being able to finance the time between producing and getting paid |
| Commercial | Technical sheet, material and experience with customers abroad | Sheet in the buyer's language, photos and price list | Material only in Spanish and no export price |
| Management and team | Project owner, available time and languages | A designated person with hours assigned per week | The owner does everything in spare time |
| Paperwork and logistics | RUC, SOL key and freight and customs providers | Active RUC, SOL key and contacts of agents | Not knowing whom to ask for a transport quote |
Result: Andes Gourmet can offer 6,000 jars a month without neglecting its local customers. For its first container it is missing US$ 8,280 of working capital and commercial documents in English; with that prioritized, its plan already has a starting point.
12/2025
In December 2025 the European Union amended Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 on deforestation-free products again. According to the European Commission, large and medium-sized operators must comply from 30/12/2026 and micro and small ones from 30/06/2027. It covers coffee, cocoa, soy, palm oil, wood, rubber and cattle, and derived products such as chocolate. Anyone exporting Peruvian coffee or cocoa to the EU will receive requests for information about the product's origin from their European buyer.
Find out what the destination market requires before you set your plan: a traceability gap can close the door on you even if your product is excellent.
Source: Comisión Europea – Regulation on deforestation-free products
2026
The US FDA maintains the food facility registration and states that each facility must renew it every two years. This is a requirement of the buying country, not of Peru: a factory that produces food for that market must keep its registration up to date. An expired or missing registration can stop the product at the US border, however good the sale is.
Include the destination country's registrations in your diagnosis and note each renewal date as a task with an owner.
Source: FDA – Registration of Food Facilities and Other Submissions
Practise with the calculators, the COMEX Simulator and the review questions on the main page.
Open this topic in the calculator →