"But the world is not flat, argues HBS professor Pankaj Ghemawat. Think of it as partly globalized, or 'semiglobalized.'"Considering how both Mayor Smith and Kris Ockomon talked about marketing Anderson globally, I think the whole interview ought to be read. One bit of that interview follows:As he sees it, important realities dotting the landscape for business can be grouped into 4 basic areas: cultural, administrative/political, geographic, and economic. Discussions of globalization tend to overlook these factors. And companies that wish to make headway should consider 3 broad ways of dealing with distance: adapt, overcome it, and exploit it.
"What is different about this book on global strategy is its focus on the differences across countries," he writes. "The idea is to help businesses cross borders profitably by seeing the world as it really is, rather than in idealized terms."
Note that Toyota's starting point is not a grand, longer-term vision of some distant globality when autos and auto parts can flow freely from anywhere to anywhere. Rather, the company anticipates expanded free-trade agreements within the Americas, Europe, and East Asia, but not across them. This is a more modest—but also more realistic—vision of a semiglobalized world in which neither the bridges nor the barriers between countries can be ignored.
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