Fundamentals of Globalization: A Practical Guide (Optimise)

Globalization – the trend toward freer movement of people, goods, services, and information around the world – is not a phenomenon or a passing fad. As journalist Thomas Friedman says, it's "an overarching international system shaping the domestic politics and foreign relations of virtually every country." More than ever, you need to understand how your organization fits into the global context, and how organizations need to leverage global resources to remain competitive
In this book, you'll learn about the types of globalisation and the variety of viewpoints from which to regard it. Globalization can be examined as a social, political, or economic development. It can be studied from a worldwide perspective, or from that of a particular country or industry.
You'll also learn about the implications of globalization for business organizations, such as the factors driving the current rate of globalization. These drivers have made globalization more necessary, feasible, and attractive, so businesses have to learn to leverage globalization options.
This book also covers how to determine the globalisation levels of individual companies by examining four dimensions: where their customer bases reside, how international their value chains or supply chains are, where capital resources are located, and the extent to which they're focused on doing business across cultures and markets.
In this course, you'll also learn how to develop global business strengths, such as being able to use global assets effectively and efficiently, being responsive to local needs, and having the ability to link and leverage global learning. Perhaps the most important global business strength is for an organization to have a global vision that leads to a global mind-set throughout the organization.
Going global might seem like an obvious strategy for your company. However, many organizations have encountered problems when implementing their global strategies. To develop an effective global strategy, you need to take a number of steps.
You should examine your organization's internal resources, capabilities, and competencies to see where its current strengths and weaknesses lie. Also, consider the external factors – the political and cultural barriers to expansion, market and logistic issues when operating globally, and what your competition at home and abroad is doing. You'll also need to examine how your industry has already globalized. Analyzing each of these key areas will help you set the strategic direction of your company.
Your global strategy will aim to line up the competitive advantages that arise from location, global scale economies, and global branding. You can do this by building a global presence, ensuring domestic dominance, and tackling fragmentation from country to country.
You may ask, why globalize at all? Ultimately it comes down to creating economic value for your organization. New market opportunities, higher sales volume, and more cost-effective innovation and production can all result from globalization. Electronics conglomerates, clothing brands, fast-food chains, and other organizations benefit from globalizing their businesses and your organization may be able to as well.
Global strategies are always tempered by certain cultural considerations that may challenge a company's traditional methods of creating value. Which strategies organizations adopt and what trade- offs they're willing to make, therefore, is often driven by culture as opposed to the superiority of any given strategy.
This course outlines value-creation opportunities in the global marketplace, as well as the challenges associated with pursuing those opportunities. It also describes three broad global strategies – adaptation, aggregation, and arbitrage – and how companies like yours may use them in unique combinations.