Global Strength, Local Approach

For the last 23 years I have been living in two different countries, my beloved Indonesia and Australia. Honestly, being given a chance to study in Australia really was an exhilarating experience for a raw eighteen years old student from Jakarta. Moreover, the fact that it was my first experience to be in a foreign country really made me to feel like the king of the world.

Unfortunately, the excitement did not last very long after I arrived in Australia. This was due to the fact that there are so many differences in the culture, social aspects, daily routines, and language between Australia and Indonesia. Furthermore, the reality of living alone in a totally new environment, with new friends, and without even a single soul from my family really raised my homesick feeling to the pinnacle and it became increasingly unbearable. I struggled to adapt well to the Australian culture. They speak in different language and discuss different topics. There were times during conversation that I had to pretend that I understood what they were saying and I had to fake my laugh when they made jokes which I did not even get. It took me approximately one and a half year until I could fully blend in to the locals. This small story indicates how important local approach is towards a particular society or culture to be able to blend in with them. This situation is particularly similar with the business environment. The only way to actually understand the local customers’ needs is by understanding their culture, political situation and their social aspects.

As usual, I always try to draw a thick correlation between marketing principles and my daily experience. Based on the story above, I would like to focus on the importance of having the culture of “Global Culture, Local Approach” in a company. In fact, the sustainability of a company is determined by their ability to apply their global culture with the local approach in each and different regions. Moreover, this also determines their ability to expand globally.

Let us take McDonald as an example. According to Wikipedia, the reason McDonald could conquer as well as dominate the global market is that they vary their menu based on the culture of the host country. Mc Donald’s in Indonesia serves rice and fried chicken. In Kuta Bali, instead of only fulfilling the local appetite, the restaurant is also designed with the typical Bali ambience. They understand that all the tourists from around the globe come to Kuta with the same reason which is to treasure the valuable Bali ambience.

Meanwhile, in Australia Mc Donald’s has different local approach. Australia is ranked third for its obesity problem. Hence, the Australians become more and more aware in terms of the food nutrition and yet still demand the simplicity of having junk food in order to save their time. In order to respond to this local situation, Mc Donald’s Australia serves healthy junk food such as sandwiches which are made directly when they are ordered and contain fresh vegetables and meat. This healthy junk food is also clinically proven to have lower fat compared to any junk food burgers in Australia.

Hong Kong restaurants were famous with good food but notorious for the bad washroom condition. In fact there was a saying that stated “do not go to the toilet if you go to a restaurant in Hong Kong”. However, when it opened in Hong Kong in 1975, McDonald's was the first restaurant to consistently offer clean restrooms, driving customers to demand the same from other restaurants and institutions.

The only thing which is the same from Mc Donald’s in each different country is their consistent business system. The friendliness and professionalism of their customer service are consistent globally. Their promise to deliver food in a short period of time is met in each country regardless of the variety of food that they serve regionally. This consistency then symbolizes their global culture as one of the greatest multinational companies. Their global strength enables them to reach the economical effectiveness and efficiency. They could perfectly overlap the consistent value, process, branding, and service as their global culture with all the localize approach to each different problems in each regions. They understand that the market is actually more important than the marketing itself. Hence they tend to put more investment in order to fulfill what the market wants in each region. The combination then becomes the great universal marketing tactic.

I understand that this column is far from perfection. Hence, any comments, opinions and questions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

MarketingFirstDavid Herlambang