Globalization – A Double-Edged Sword

By virtually every measure – growth in international trade, foreign direct investment or cross-border flows of technology – globalization is becoming increasingly pervasive. Many of the barriers that kept the industries and economies of different countries relatively isolated from one another are either declining or vanishing. Witness, for example – worldwide ideological shifts from state-controlled economies to market-driven economies, emergence of regional free-trade zones (such as the EU, ASEAN, NAFTA, and Mercosur), globalization of currencies, globalization of media and revolutionary changes in the cost and effectiveness of international communications and transportation technologies. Given these trends, it is not surprising that…

Two Faces of Competitive Advantage

Managers often have great difficulty figuring out where to start when analyzing the nature of their competitive advantage or lack thereof relative to competitors. Let’s say you’re trying to compare IBM vs. Accenture in IT services or Coke vs. Pepsi in cola-flavored sodas. Where would you start? How would you bring a structured approach to the analysis? In analyzing your competitive advantage relative to one or more competitors, the key is remember that there are two faces of competitive advantage: “onstage” and “backstage.” Onstage competitive advantage (or disadvantage) refers to the perceptions of target customers about how your goods and…

Smart Globalization

Smart Globalization is a compendium of leading-edge thinking on global strategy first published in the acclaimed MIT Sloan Management Review. The central premise underlying this book is that globalization can be a double-edged sword. The global or globalizing firm has the potential to reap several types of benefits such as the vast potential of a much larger market arena, opportunities to capture scale- and location-based cost efficiencies, and exposure to a multiplicity of new product and process ideas. However, globalization also exposes the firm to numerous strategic and organizational challenges emanating from a dramatic increase in diversity, complexity, and uncertainty…

Global Strategies For Emerging Asia

The multinational corporate guide for thriving in the Asian marketplace Led by China and India, the rise of emerging Asia is transforming the structure of the global economy. By 2025, if not sooner, China will almost certainly overtake the U.S. to become the world’s largest economy. By then, India is likely to have overtaken Japan to become the world’s third largest economy, after China and the U.S. Besides China and India, Asia also includes other fast-growing economies such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Added together, by 2025, these developments are likely to make Asia’s economy larger than those…