What's Your Push Into China?

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If you run a global small business, and I am assuming many of you do, what should you be doing to swing open that door to China? The first step is to track what others are doing and determine success rates.

For example, innovative healthcare product company Novartis announced on Tuesday that it will spend U.S. $1 billion spread over five years to make China (starting in Shanghai -- pictured) a third global pillar for its research and development. Why? Couple of good reasons:

1. Rapid growth is one key reason for the expansion.
2. Projected to become one of Novartis's three biggest markets by 2014.
3. Revenue in China has been growing at annual rate of 30% in the last few years.
4. Health-care reform alone will fuel growth.

The question Novartis asks is: "Where do you need to be down the road, and clearly it is here." It's a question many of us should be asking and facing but what small business can afford to make the kind of investment required to do business in China?

Do you think at the very least it might be prudent to give Novartis a call or send an email to an appropriate person to see how you might partner with them on some of their initiatives? It's a great way to attempt to crack open the market -- together.

Read more here.

Are You Growing Global At the Right Rate?

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The Impact of Emerging Markets

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Deloitte CEO Barry Salzberg on the challenges companies face when operating in emerging markets.

Challenge No. 1: How to fuel growth.

Everything You Want To Know About The State of Blogosphere

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To find out about the growth and trends in blogosphere, catch the State of the Blogosphere 2009 report released, starting October 19th, in five consecutive daily segments.

Here's a snippet of Day 1:

Overall, bloggers are a highly educated and affluent group. Nearly half of all bloggers we surveyed have earned a graduate degree, and the majority have a household income of $75,000 per year or higher. As blogging is now firmly a part of the mainstream, we see that the average blogger has three or more blogs and has been blogging for two or more years. We are also noticing an ever-increasing overlap between blogging and mainstream media.

So who are the bloggers? Let's delve into the demographics:

• Two-thirds are male
• 60% are 18-44
• The majority are more affluent and educated than the general population
◦ 75% have college degrees
◦ 40% have graduate degrees
◦ One in three has an annual household income of $75K+
◦ One in four has an annual household income of $100K+
◦ Professional and self-employed bloggers are more affluent: nearly half have an annual household income of $75,000 and one third topped the $100,000 level
• More than half are married
• More than half are parents
• Half are employed full time, however ¾ of professional bloggers are employed full time.

Jump to Day 5, Global Impact of all (including the use of Twitter) here.

A hat tip to cool colleague Dan Webber, Account Supervisor, Edelman (D.C.) for bringing this to my attention.

Go here for additional data.

How To Chart an Export Course Right Out of the Recession

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Here's the task at hand for 46-year-old chief executive N. Chandrasekaran (better known as "Chandra" -- pictured) at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.: To chart a course for India's largest software exporter out of a recession that deflated global technology spending and exposed the reliance of Indian outsourcing firms on the U.S. and U.K. markets.

In an interview conducted by WSJ reporters Amol Sharma and Paul Beckett, Chandra shares his mind about how he plans to navigate Tata out of the downturn.

Let's focus primarily on the 21 takeaways that I picked up on that might enable you to get a better hold on global strategy for your business:

1. Expand your company's footprint (think about emerging markets).
2. Tackle new areas (such as cloud computing).
3. Make sure you are very close with all your customers.
4. Manage your costs better.
5. It's not about taking costs out; it's about bringing more efficiency.
6. Become closer to your customers.
7. Stay with your customers during the downturn (don't abandon them).
8. Coach your team to have them understand your customer's "pain points."
9. Ask your customers: "What can we do to help?"
10. Don't continue to pursue BIG deals in the pipeline that may never come to fruition.
11. Focus on deals (develop an entirely new strategy) that will come to fruition.
12. Expand your presence in other parts of the world (consider emerging markets).
13. Develop a full suite of services that you can sell end-to-end offerings to customers.
14. Go after "nonlinear" growth. In other words, find ways to generate more revenues with less headcount additions.
15. Create something once, then re-use it to serve multiple customers!
16. As your customers go global, be there before they arrive to service their needs.
17. Send people on-site to make it work -- especially if language is a problem.
18. Select strategic locations to conduct business in.
19. Pick the right strategic location and then scale it (e.g, Mexico).
20. Train people to develop your firm's methodology across all continents.
21. Look at cloud computing as a business model, not a technology.

Tata Consultancy to Expand Footprint in Emerging Markets

Bring America to the World

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This is a fascinating commentary not just about the wildly popular "Mad Men" series but more about Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton Worldwide hotel chain. There's so much I didn't know about him.

In the series, Hilton, portrayed by Chelcie Ross, says, "It's my purpose in the life to bring America to the world." In real life he called it, "planting a little bit of America around the world."

I'll let you read the piece for yourself, "Hollywood Discovers a Real Businessman."

The only reason why I am blogging about it is because I feel a little of The Global Small Business Blog brings America to the world too. Don't you?

Global Happy Halloween: Trick or Treat?

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"Hey ho for Halloween
When the fairies all are seen;
Some black and some green,
Hey ho for Halloween!"

~ Traditional Irish Rhyme
Posted by Laurel Delaney, The Global Small Business Blog

Who Has The Global Edge On Wireless Reading Devices?

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You tell me:

1. Sony Reader
2. Amazon Kindle
3. Barnes & Noble Nook
4. Samsung Papyrus

And there are more here!

How do you determine which company is truly global on the launch of its e-book reader -- by wireless capabilities, number of people using the gadget or the number of different languages available on it or all of the above?

11-Year Old's Idea is Exported Around The World

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If an eleven-year old boy from Minnesota can come up with an idea and have it shipped worldwide, so can you. Learn in this case what the secret to global small business success is here.

And love this quote within it:

Even if some funding remains in question, Michael Howard of the U.S. Export-Import Bank had good news for businesses: "There is plenty of money out there." Federal loan guarantees are available for many export businesses.

Entrepreneur for the World

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The World Entrepreneurship Forum’s “Entrepreneur for the World” Award, Politician category, has been exceptionally granted during a conference held on October 20, 2009 hosted by EMLYON Business School (Lyon, France). And the winner is Mary Robinson!

From the press release:

Mrs Robinson's passion and faith left the audience capitivated and charmed. In her speech to more than 600 EMLYON students, Mrs Robinson highlighted that “The world needs leadership and especially leadership of values” saluting our School mission statement "educating entrepreneurs for the world" that gives sense to any action and project at EMLYON Business School.

Patrick Molle, President of EMLYON Business School, and Jean-Luc Decornoy, Chairman of KPMG SA, presented the Award to Ms. Robinson in the presence of the official partners of the World Entrepreneurship Forum (full disclosure: I am a member).

The broadcast of the conference will be on the World Entrepreneurship Forum’s website: (http://www.world-entrepreneurship-forum.com) as a video shortly.

The "Entrepreneur for the World" Awards are granted to emblematic international personalities, in recognition of their actions in favor of entrepreneurship and social justice.

There are four different award categories: Entrepreneur, Social Entrepreneur, Politician and Academic Expert. The names of the award-winners are being held secret until the Award Ceremony which will be held on November 19, 2009 during the 2009 World Entrepreneurship Forum (full disclosure: I am attending).

The "Entrepreneur for the World" Awards have been initiated during the 2008, and first edition of the World Entrepreneurship Forum, when all its members freely voted for each one of the four categories. The vote was secret. A biographical research has been conducted by the World Entrepreneurship Forum committee to ensure that nominated personalities are in line with the World Entrepreneurship Forum ethics and values of entrepreneurship, social justice and international exposure.

The final Jury was held in Lyon, on April 1st, 2009, composed of 15 personalities of 6 different nationalities.

More information about the World Entrepreneurship Forum can be found here. Guiding Principals which enable and foster the various forms of entrepreneurship can be found here.

Do You Have Cultural Intelligence?

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As Steve Miller for IndustryWeek states in "Are You Cued in to Cultural Intelligence?:"

Understanding the culture of the parties you are negotiating with is vital in order to establish a successful business relationship.

Agree? Disagree?

With increasing globalization, cultural intelligence becomes ever more crucial to global business success. We covered this issue extensively eight years ago with, "Are You Ready? Take the Global IQ Test To Find Out (available for download here)" -- here's tip No. 3:

3). Are you adaptable, do you take risks, and can you be innovative?

Adaptability means that if you don’t know how different markets operate, you find out—fast. You stay sensitive to the cultural values of other countries. And if things appear one way today and another tomorrow, you shift gears and work with conditions as you find them. Creating your strategy on your feet is the only way to do global business.

The more you risk, the greater your chances for success or failure, but either way you’re pushing your limits and extending your reach. There comes a point in every initiative when you must recognize the risks and move forward anyway. Remember, you learn the most from failure, so take what chances you can afford.

Keeping the mind fresh, fertile, and open to new perspectives—the prerequisites of innovation—is a must if you want to effectively conduct business worldwide. There are endless ways of opening your mind that you can get to work on right now. View as many Web sites as possible. For example, check out www.ImprovEdge.com, which uses the techniques of improvisational theater to help executives learn to think fast, react to sudden changes, and build truly effective teams.

Beyond surfing the Internet, take long walks in unfamiliar neighborhoods. See foreign films. Meet people in other professions. Join social groups that attract members of other nationalities. Don’t withdraw when confronted with cultural differences—hang in there and ask yourself why you feel the way you do. This is real learning. Give yourself a chance to discover your own unexamined values and assumptions and you will find it a lot easier to accept others’ unfamiliar approaches!

©2001 Laurel Delaney. All rights reserved.

Back to cultural intelligence. According to Miller's article, David Livermore, executive director of the Global Learning Center in Grand Rapids, Mich., and author of "Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The New Secret to Success," has fresh insights to share on the topic. I have not read his recently published book so I cannot comment on its content.

However, I have read Silvia Cambie's and Yang-May Ooi's new book, "International Communications Strategy: Developments in cross-cultural communications, PR and social media" which examines the cross-cultural challenges facing the communication industry and offers experienced advice.

Whether derived from an article, book or experience, one cannot emphasize enough the importance of cultural competence in the world of business.

Panasonic Goes Local to Achieve Global Economies of Scale

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Television, consumer electronic and white good producer Panasonic Corp., which already has a sizable chunk of Japan's home appliance market, is aggressively pushing into India and Europe by considering local production in those areas to take advantage of lower distribution and manufacturing costs not to mention acquiring a competitive edge in delivery time.

Important Insight

Panasonic sees ...

... emerging markets -- defined by the company as Brazil, India, Russia, China, Vietnam, Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey and the Balkan states -- overtaking North America and Europe as the biggest overseas market for its overall consumer products by 2013.

Read more about this here.

Panasonic sporting some heavy duty innovation.

Know Where You Are in the World

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“It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are ... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise." ~ Henry David Thoreau

Hope your weekend brings clarity. The photo above is taken outside of Chicago in Rogers Park, Illinois.

Every Single Person On The Planet Will Have a Global Small Business

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In the next couple of years, it's easy for me to predict ...

That nearly every single person on the planet will have a global small business that hopefully will become BIG someday. This evolution will be similar to the shift from black and white television to color. If you had tried to watch black and white television for the rest of your life — which some consumers attempted to do because they didn’t have the money to buy a color set or hated change — that set someday would die. At some point, to repair it would have cost far more than a brand new color TV. So whether they liked it or not, consumers had to move with the masses and upgrade to the new color technology. They soon discovered it was the coolest invention ever and the best investment that money could buy! That’s how I envision the radical shift from small business to global small business.

Find out five (5) best practices on why it's happening here.

I authored the article, "From Local To Global Small Business: 5 Best Practices That Make It Happen," for Small Business United Blog. Feel free to let us know what you think of it.

Drucker Delivered Direct To Your Door

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I am a big, big fan of Peter Drucker and I just noticed in marking the 100th anniversary of Peter Drucker's birthday that Harvard Business Review has some thought provoking essays written by Harvard folks as well as a feature on Drucker's classic contributions.

No matter how you look at it, Drucker was a tremendous force and influencer in the business world, especially on management thinking. If you can, take the time to review some of this information. It might make the difference between operating from good to great with your global small business.

Drucker Today

By Rosabeth Moss Kanter

While Peter Drucker was alive, he sounded early warnings about sky-high executive pay, an ossified auto industry, and emerging — market threats to U.S. economic dominance. It's not too late to benefit from his advice.

By Alan M. Kantrow

Peter Drucker's writings offer distilled, articulate analyses of modern business management. But, more important, they are a case study in how to think. Five leaders describe Drucker's influence on them in essays that accompany Kantrow's 1980 article.

By Tammy Erickson

We're not quite there yet, but, as usual, Peter's clear vision paints a picture of a world that is looking increasingly likely.

Classic Drucker Articles

Managing Oneself
Drucker challenges readers to take responsibility for managing their futures, both in and out of the office.

What Makes an Effective Executive
Eight simple practices — and one rule — every executive needs to follow to be effective.

What Executives Should Remember
A compilation of the savviest management advice Drucker offered HBR readers over the years.

The Theory of the Business
What happens when the assumptions on which an organization has been built no longer fit reality?

What Business Can Learn from Nonprofits
The best nonprofit organizations are pioneers in motivating knowledge workers and raising their productivity.

All of it can be found here.

And visit The Drucker Institute.

Separately, it appears the Google tag issue has been resolved on our blog.

Asia Appears To Be Leading the Global Economic Recovery

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Those are the words from Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve and he also stated that the Asian nations were pulling the global economy out of its downturn.

Mr. Bernanke avoided what was in many ways the elephant in the room: the value of the United States dollar. The dollar has dropped sharply in recent weeks against the euro and the Japanese yen, a move that has helped increase American exports by making them cheaper in some foreign markets. But the dollar has not budged in more than a year against China’s renminbi, which the Chinese continue to tightly manage and which many economists say remains greatly undervalued.

Read more here.

China Is a Market Going In Only One Direction: BIG

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Gap Inc. announced plans to open a China store and expand on its e-commerce operations. In addition, they will be establishing e-commerce sites in the U.K. and Canada next year.

International store sales were $2.6 billion last year; roughly 19% of the company's total store sales. U.S. Online sales reached $1 billion last year.

To think they started out small. It gives us all hope that we can go from global small business to BIG business. They are now in a major turn-around mode with a huge international push.

Read more here.

75% of Intel's Business Is Overseas

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This is a trend that might continue. Global stimulus money has something to do with it.

Find out more here.

Sample: Intel India Systems Research Center

Give a Man a Boat He Can Sail

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“Give a man a horse he can ride, give a man a boat he can sail; and his rank and wealth, his strength and health on sea nor shore shall fail.” ~ James Thomson

Have a magnificent weekend. Hope it's smooth sailing wherever you are.

Learning a Language?

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Holy cow! Google has added an amazing 285 languages to its Translator Toolkit which brings the total number of languages to 345.

Google says its focusing on minority languages. This includes regional, heritage, indigenous, and threatened languages. Google wants to help preserve these lesser known languages so that these smaller cultures won't be forgotten as history constantly unfolds.

One of the minority languages is Māori. Read more here.

5 Tips to Lead Your Company Out of a Downturn

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Be realistic is No. 1.

Get the rest here.

Plus:

7 Ways to Strategically Use Social Media and Social Networking to Grow Your Business

Wait, there's more!

Work Your Website: 7 Tips for Turning Global Browsers into Buyers