| Theme: Global Environment
Features
Building Organizations Around the Global Customer
By Jay Galbraith
The phenomenon of the global customer is growing in importance every day and so too is the global-customer-centric organization. Yet many companies, especially those designed according to function, country and business unit, are having difficulty re-designing and aligning their structure with the needs of the global customer. This widely published academic and professor emeritus of the IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland discusses the challenge that an organization faces in creating and adding a global customer dimension. He identifies the capabilities a company needs to respond to the global customer, and discusses how to build those capabilities and integrate them with the capabilities the company has already.
In Conversation: Jean Monty
By Stephen Bernhut
As recently as five years ago, there were only local and long-distance telephone services. But look at the phone companies now. Leading the transformation is Canada's largest public company, BCE, and its CEO, Jean Monty, who has reshaped bell and moved it into being a provider of Internet access, wireless data services, and the owner of a major B2B e-commerce company, and major old and new media. One of Canada's most successful CEO's, Mr. Monty outlines his reasons for transforming staid, old Ma Bell and the strategy he will use to reshape the company further. The former CEO of Nortel, Mr. Monty offers his own assessment of the company and the beleaguered telecom sector.
Strategic Alliances: The only way to compete in the 21st century
By Maria Gonzalez
Regardless of the industry or type of business, strategic alliances are the best way for a company to compete and succeed in today's networked economy. But building a strategic alliance and making it work are not easy. As this consultant and former financial services executive points out, partnering well is a key core competence and it is one that needs to be developed. In the article, Ms. Gonzalez describes the principles for developing that competence. She also describes some of the risks and benefits that a company will derive from entering into a strategic alliance in today's dynamic and complex business environment.
Building Customer Relationships in a Networked Economy
By Robert Fisher
Few forces have changed the rules of doing business as the Internet and few rules have changed as profoundly as those which govern companies' relationships with their customers. Before the Internet, companies could be customer aware; but they did not necessarily have to be customer centric. Now, they have no choice. As this Ivey professor points out, developing and integrating on-line and off-line marketing tactics presents an unparalleled opportunity for a company to develop a strong relationship with its customers. In this article, professor Fisher offers advice which will help companies decide which on-line and off-line tactics are best for managing customer relationships.
The Myths of Globalization
By Alan Rugman and Karl Moore
Much of the discussion about globalization has missed a very important point, these co-authors claim, and seeing this point and understanding it are critical if executives are to really grasp what globalization is all about. The co-authors, professors at the University of Indiana and McGill University, write that far from a single, global market, most trade takes place within regional blocs or clusters. Trade activity effectively occurs in the triad of North America, the European Union and Japan, and an approach based on national or regional realities, not global ones, will make the most sense for companies. Professors Rugman and Moore have ample evidence to substantiate their argument and they suggest what Canadian executives can do counter and manage despite the widely propagated myth of globalization.
Globalization and its Discontents: The arrival of triple-bottom-line reporting
By Mel Wilson and Rosie Lombardi
Awareness of the social and environmental impact of large corporations is growing, leading to ever more vocal demands for greater transparency and disclosure. These demands have broadened the definition of accountability, from one that is based only on profit to one that demonstrates positive, sustainable economic, environmental and social performance over the long term. This approach to reporting performance has come to be called triple-bottom-line. However, as these co-authors point out, the methods for measuring and reporting must be consistent if they are to be accurate and useful. In this article, they analyze this new approach to performance measurement and offer several best-practice examples that can serve as models for any company.
The World Trade Organization: On the Road to Doha
By Lawrence L. Herman
Nothing less than trying to reach a consensus on a new round of trade negotiations is at stake at the WTO's next ministerial in Doha, Qatar in November. It is a tall challenge, given that trade fatigue has set in among most the countries who will gather in the Persian Gulf country. But, as this Canadian trade lawyer points out, the business community has an obvious and direct interest in a healthy, energetic WTO, since the organization will set the rules of international trade for years to come. Any executive then, would do well to read this article, as the author tries to make the workings of one of the world's most Byzantine bureaucracies clear, and its thinking, if only relatively, rather straightforward.
Departments
Headstart
CRM is a strategy not a tactic
By Ian Gordon
Almost all firms have adopted Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in their bid to build loyalty and retention. Too often, however, a CRM policy is highly ineffectual. The problem, this author and consultant says, is that a CRM program is developed as a stand-alone tactic, instead of being seen and developed as a strategy. Mr. Gordon, who has consulted for some of North America's largest corporations, itemizes and analyzes the errors companies make when developing a CRM program. He also puts forward some highly practical and valuable suggestions that will help them realize the great promise of CRM.
Businesses are helping to overcome global poverty
By Nicholas Stern
The facts today point to a decline in global poverty and to the reality that global economic development is working. These positive developments are due to policies pursued by both public organizations and the international business community. But as the Chief Economist of the World Banks says, business can do even more to help the world's poorest countries. For example, debt relief by itself is hypocritical unless markets in rich countries accept products from poorer countries. Rich countries should lift, once and for all, the trade barriers and subsidies that prevent products from developing countries from reaching their markets. Businesses headquartered in rich countries should also encourage their governments to honour the commitment to devote 0.7 percent of their annual GNP to overseas aid. These and other suggestions are the core of this article that calls on business to step up its fight against poverty around the world.
Layoffs: Creating or destroying shareholder value?
By David Campbell and Felix Barber
Right or wrong, making wholesale cuts in the number of employees is still a CEO's first and preferred step in cutting costs. The word "still" is important, because the cuts call into question, or more precisely cast doubt on, the almost universal tendency of CEOs to trumpet that "employees are our most valuable asset." But, as these co-authors and consultants at the Boston Consulting Group ask, should employees be the first assets overboard if a business begins to sink? Or, are companies mortgaging their most valuable assets for short-term benefits? And, do shareholders benefit from layoffs or are they in fact being short-changed? The answers to these question expose a fundamental weakness in many companies and point to a system of performance measurement that is geared less to the importance of today's intellectual capital than it is to financial capital.
Asian Influence
An interview: N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman and CEO, Infosys Technologies
By Stephen Bernhut
Infosys is one of Asia's - and India's - greatest success stories, and one of the main reasons for its success is the astuteness and brilliance of Chairman and CEO N.R. Narayana Murthy. Mr. Murthy is one of seven men who pooled individual contributions of $250 to found the software giant. In this wide-ranging interview, he discusses the key factors in Infosys' dramatic rise to the front ranks of software developers. These include the Indian government's liberalization of the business environment in the early 90s, the presence of an educated, entrepreneurial class, and the desire to be the global best of breed in a particular field.
Viewpoint
The New Economy: Preparing for a Slowdown: A Revisit
By John McCallum
Regular contributor John McCallum saw it coming. One year ago, in the September/October Ivey Business Journal, the University of Manitoba economist told executives how to steel themselves against the coming meltdown. In this revisit, Professor McCallum is anything but optimistic, and he again urges executives to remain firm and not be seduced by the belief that there will be a quick return to heady days of 1999 and 2000. "Think hard before you let this rosy outlook dictate how you run your enterprise, he urges readers. 'There are too many issues for my comfort."
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