Global is Local

COMMENT, Sydney and Global – Global is a word often thrown around like candy at Halloween.

Too often global operations have inbuilt assumptions that people are the same everywhere. We all do it.

The assumption of homogeneity effects Customers. Employees. Suppliers.

Assumptions of homogeneity are exacerbated when people speak the same language, often English.

These assumptions can cause big issues. Issues that surface when expanding into overseas markets or staffing a remote operation or even visiting foreign lands.

Why do we assume?

Too often we see similar western accoutrement’s like McDonalds, CDs, computers, internet, CNN, DVDs, foods, or many other goods and we innately forget that we are in a different land.

When you can buy a Big Mac by speaking English in San Antonio, Berlin, London, Madrid and Strasbourg it is easy to make the mistake these places have strong cultural similarities.

Different cities may have the same franchise. Starbucks. McDonalds. Prada. Gucci. Across all sectors and budgets there may be similarities. Berlin & Sydney share many franchises.

It is easy to then jump to the conclusion that ideas can be transferred from one place to another without alteration. It is tempting to think top-down.

And you may superficially find similarities, but cultural differences permeate all aspects of life, business, commerce, education and friendships.

Germans and Australians have different approaches to life, work and money.

I have seen quite a few Germans (not all) struggle to transfer their approach to work to Australia’s less formal, laissez-faire and often unstructured approach to work, in the simultaneously flat and political workplaces common in Sydney or Melbourne.

Regionality Is important

Despite France’s fine food focus, France is one of the most profitable countries for fast-food purveyors McDonalds. McDonalds globally adapts its menu to suit the country it is in.

(Personally mostly I prefer to eat local cuisine. I always find it more interesting and culturally informative.)

Many global operations do not make profits in all locations. Often they view a location as a defensive measure against competition, a way of maintaining their global foot print.

But most successful global operations need to adapt to local conditions.

Many local operations are not transferable to global conditions.

Global commerce is full of contradictions that challenge your assumptions that can only be observed from being on-the-ground.

It’s the commonalities that can be used to create global businesses. however differences can be informative.

Fact is though, that global is the sum of local.

And the secret to global is to aggregate local.

There are many ways to approach this.

To start with there are nascent trends that are shaping the world. Some interesting ones, depending on where you live:

• Individualism
• Nationalism
• Cultural homogenization
• Regionalism
• Conservatism
• Individual activism
• Consumer journalism
• and many more…

Some overlap, some intersect, some contradict.

Fact is the teens and 20somethings worldwide are a very individualistic and aggressive generation. This is a commonality. There is a sense of disenfranchisement with Authority in Albania, Australia, America and France. Very different places.

Increasingly they may have the sense that those older generations actually didn’t do a good job of the globalising the world.

There are also seemingly contradictory forces and neo-conservatism.

It’s worth thinking about. Here’s some starting points:

What local ideas would work globally?

And where are you assuming that others are just like you?

Take care,

Christopher

•