Friday, January 05, 2018

Oh Who Says There is a Retreat of Globalization?

©iStock/peshkov
As Pankaj Ghemawat says for the Harvard Business Review:
One week after Donald Trump’s inauguration, with fears of a trade war spiking, the Economist published a cover story, “The Retreat of the Global Company,” in which it proclaimed that “the biggest business idea of the past three decades is in deep trouble” and that “the advantages of scale and…arbitrage have worn away.” And Jeffrey Immelt, GE’s chairman and CEO, has talked about the company’s “bold pivot” from globalization to localization.
Oh please.  Globalization will never go away -- it's here to stay.  And look at the state GE is in after Immelt decided to do his bold pivot.  Get with the program -- choose globalization as your strategy or else risk thwarting the true upside potential of your business.

Case in point:  Many years ago, when I worked at a small manufacturing company, had we not taken our company global, we would have stayed at $600,000 in annual revenues year after year.  Instead, we took the chance and went after the world for business, ended up conducting business in 27 different countries, with 33 percent of our business generated internationally.  We reached $6 million in annual revenues within 3 years.  This was all done with a four-person staff, myself included.

You can listen to others and stay local or you can go after what is rightfully yours, easy to have and offers fantastic benefits.  The world is your market.  The only thing stopping you is you.

Read more:  Globalization in the Age of Trump

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