Global Strategy and Its Impact on Local Operations; Lessons from Gillette Singapore

Nowadays, businesses must think big. It is not enough to be the best in the city or even the country. The goal should be to go global and take advantage of the opportunities offered by the phenomenon of globalization and be part of the “global market”. This is rather ambitious but some companies have stepped out their country’s borders and have gained global recognition.

D. intra-corporate inflows. 14. Optimizing the location of every activity in the value chain can yield all of the following strategic advantages except A. performance enhancement. B. cost reduction. C. extending the life cycle of the product of service. D. risk reduction. 15. Gillette's worldwide success with its Sensor razor demonstrates A. the importance of merging global and multidomestic strategies. B. the values of establishing joint ventures with several multinational corporations. C. that a global marketing effort can sometimes be successful. D. the usefulness of a multidomestic strategy.

Challenge of Globalization W. L. GORE & ASSOCIATE had been expending their business in more than 30 over country; there are Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East, Central America, North America and South America, leading manufacturer of thousands of advanced technology products for the electronics, industrial, fabrics and medical markets. With the employees of 9.500 people around the world, managing the people also bring along the trouble as well. With the diversity of culture, people, background, language and norms, challenges and problems occur within the company and beyond the boundaries of the company. This is the major problems that will occur when a company goes global and expanding to the world. This challenge of globalization

Globalisation is the internationalization of trade and often forces businesses to adopt new strategies for operations to suit different cultures and economies. The often easily saturated domestic market has triggered many large

The introduction of the Sensor Shaving System, one of the biggest product launches ever, forced Gillette to reevaluate its strategy in its shaving and non-shaving business. It had to decide whether to go ahead with the launch and if so, at what scale.

Peng M.W., Pleggenkuhle-Miles E-G. “Current Debates in Global Strategy” International Journal of Management Reviews, 51-69

Synopsis: Gillette has long been known for innovation in both product development and marketing strategy. In the highly competitive, but mature, razor and blade market, Gillette holds a commanding worldwide market share. The peak of its innovation occurred in 2006 with the introduction of the Fusion 5-bladed razor. Today, innovation in razors and blades is thwarted by a lack of new technology and increasing consumer reluctance to pay for the “latest and greatest” in shaving technology. Gillette must decide how to put the razor wars behind them and maintain or increase its share of the global razor market.

The Procter & Gamble has vast differentiated products due to its innovation culture. This is not just the invention of new products and services, but the ability to systematically convert ideas into new offerings that alter the very context of the business (Charan, 2008). The product differentiation allows the P&G to charge premium price for its products and assists to capture market share from its rivals by increasing the product demand.

1. Brief description of the context and of the decision which has to be made.

Wither it is product or marketing innovation, Gillette has to always exceed in innovation to stay dominant in its market.

The world offers significant business opportunities for every company, however, opportunities are accompanied by significant challenges for managers. Managing global operations across diverse cultures and markets represents a big challenge and opportunity for companies. To compete in the global market and be successful, companies must learn the strategies, policies, norms and technology necessary to conduct international business. The opportunities for global expansion are numerous, and attaining success is a matter of developing the right strategy to win local markets and its consumers.

Gillette is seeking means to retain dominance in market share they have lead for the last century. Along with sustaining market share Gillette has continued focus on expanding worldwide into less saturated markets. In this analysis multiple alternatives will be explored in order to make a recommendation on steps that would favor Gillette’s organization in meeting their aspirations.

Philips has thrived on its technological prowess, which is a result of their strong focus on research and development. Specifically, Philips maintains a product-focused strategy and their highly decentralized National Organizations allow them to adapt to different market conditions globally. Human capital has historically been a key resource for the company, as they focused on caring for their workers and coordinating business efforts in a cross-functional environment (i.e. technical and marketing managers working on projects together), but frequent leadership turnover and seemingly endless turnaround efforts have weakened this valuable capability. It is arguable, however, that the cross-functional culture is still active at Philips and most of the top management team has completed foreign tours of duty.

As trade increases hyper-competition grows forcing organizations to go global. By a company going global it requires them to rethink strategy and reform (Ananthram and Pearson, 2008). Global organizational structure is the way a company aims to merge local preferences with global strategy. The definition of global strategy is “strategic choices that have the characteristics of being globally uniform or integrated,” (Yip et al., 1997) such as standardization of products, uniform marketing, and competitive moves, but all globally (Townsend et al., 2004; Zou and Cavusgil, 2002; Bayraktar and Ndubisi, 2014). Global strategic strategy is a way to adjust to globalization. Globalization is “the economic and social process by which economies and communities grow inextricably interdependent “(Jhirad et al., 2009). The recent financial crisis (Das, 2010), large amount of poverty, and climate change are all problems that show how the world is globally connected because all countries impact each other (Jhirad et al., 2009).

Global interdependence never really crossed my mind when thinking about company’s and what they must go through. As I acquired knowledge about globalized companies in other classes, I never dove this deep into it like this class. Overall, this class has taught me a great deal about all aspects of a company from the management standpoint to the logistics that go into getting products to where they need to go. Global interdependence is a huge topic in every company and is a topic that must be perfectly in sync with the company’s beliefs to be successful overseas. Global interdependence includes changes, interconnectedness, and diversity.