The “think global and act local” inertia
We have heard it before, haven’t we all? It’s hard to disagree: have a global strategy and be smart about the local opportunities. But do we really think global? And what does act local mean, exactly? Some (less than optimum) practices have been around for a long time, with little questioning:
Corporate does the strategy, the field sells/executes: Under this approach, the field still comes up with plans, but usually they are short-term, good for one fiscal year. Sometimes ambitious three-year growth plans. They often focus on sales and demand generation. Long term plans touching product road-map, development of new categories or brand strategy are centralized, handled by the mother-ship.
All hail the playbooks: The global HQ dictates the principles for execution and looks for “anomalies”. When an anomaly works, it must be quickly shared with others as a “best practice”, and it becomes part of the next year’s playbook.
Empower the top markets, control the rest: “Top markets” leadership teams are better connected with HQs, due to the revenue they bring. They may even get their own product development centers. The “RoW” is managed for scale, with less staff and focus on sales.
Thankfully, this world view is evolving, and new leaders are emerging with a broader perspective. Here are a few things that these folks realize, setting them apart:
1) Power shift: As we embrace an economy of consumption, the true power comes from deep customer understanding. And guess who is closer to the customer? The field brings new value to the table. Deep collaboration between HQ and local offices becomes a prerequisite, rather than and exception when developing the business’ macro strategy.
2) The global customer: casting a wide net and having a minimum staff presence abroad is tempting - as broadband spreads and the cloud and AI break physical and language barriers. But the customer base and brands are also global and interconnected. Meeting the quality of service and customer experience standards, regardless of where you operate, it’s the cost of doing business - if you want to do it right.
3) Local impact is not enough: the impact that global corporations have in the local economies is an important KPI. But as we learned from Hans Rosling, in isolation this sounds like an old colonial worldview… To be truly global, better question are: how much of what we learn from each market where we operate changes what we do? How do we promote synapses across our global brain tissue? Do our clients in one region benefit from the experiences we have elsewhere?
I recently came across a fantastic business case from a friend who lives in Canada. He has shared his breakthrough story in different continents. And although the story is always the same, the insight people get seem to be different, depending where they are. Why does that happen? To be continued on the next article…
I wrote this on a plane, coming back from a vibrant business trip to visit our talented Dublin and Munich teams, excited about how much I learned from everyone there. I’ve spent half of my career “in the field” and the other half at the big corporate mother-ship. Had different roles managing and learning from international markets, and I am thankful for the opportunity to learn from people around the world.