Business Globalization

I was sitting in the car on the highway to meet a business colleague on Wednesday. There are a lot of interesting phenomena that I observed during the trip. These phenomena come from a great burger company, with a big yellow M as their slogan, a funny clown as their character, the one and only McDonald’s. The title of this sharing is business globalization since I think that big businesses somehow become the culture of the global society or even create the new habit of our society.

My old business lecturer once told me that a business would be able to control a country when it becomes too big. Microsoft surely creates new habits for our global society. Imagine if all Microsoft Windows Operating System are stopped in a night. I think the whole planet earth will become even more chaotic than when the Tsunami devastated the Asian countries. In fact, the global economy is actually influenced by these businesses.

Imagine if Coca Cola suddenly disappear from our society. I think a lot of people will be unemployed, the New York Stock Exchange will be suddenly shaken, and all the restaurants on the globe will experience diminishing in their profit. Moreover, all the coca cola fans will become furious.

In the world McDonald’s surely is everywhere. When I was driving on the highway I can clearly see two McDonald’s restaurants situated exactly opposite to each other, one for each different route. It becomes the executive daily habit to grab the McDonald’s meal in the morning since it is simple, easy, and of course fast. On the highway I could also see even the road directory contains McDonald’s sign in it. This really shows how the company affects the Australian government and Australian culture.

Ten years ago I could still live happily without a mobile phones in my pocket. Somehow the world was small enough to get in contact with our friends and family without the mobile phones. However after Nokia introduced their 5110 series to the world, the whole society becomes addicted to mobile phones. I really cannot live without a mobile phone now. Somehow it becomes so troublesome without it.

A simple sharing about business globalization. Do you have another experience that shows how businesses could affect your habit? Please share it to the group

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

Current Problem, Current Opportunity

The phrase ‘something happens for a reason’ might seem too trivial for us, but few people realize that certain things do happen for good reasons.

Australia, just like any other Western countries, is turning into a health-conscious society. Its alarming obesity rate triggers the Heart Foundation to promote healthy lifestyle through its campaigns. One of its significant efforts is to introduce a “tick” program, aimed to help consumers make healthier food choice conveniently. Basically, all food products which have met strict heart foundation standard have a “tick” label on their packaging. This “tick” will differentiate these products from those which are deemed to be unhealthy.

McDonald’s, being the biggest junk food provider in the world, sees this healthy lifestyle trend as an alarming situation. When more and more people become health-conscious, they will consume less junk food. This would mean bad business for this giant fast food chain.

Aware of this threat, McDonald’s quickly joins the crowd by going into the health-conscious bandwagon. They create new menus which can get the Health Foundation’s approval “tick”. They do continue selling the old hamburgers and fries, but some of their menus are healthier. This is a huge loop for their marketing. This strategy causes McDonald’s to have an ‘excuse’ to declare that they do try to address the current problem, even though they are still selling junk food.

Currently, McDonald’s has Health Foundation’s “tick” for their nine new menus. They create a better image to health-conscious people, and with this image, they attract new customers. Customers who have left McDonald’s after being disgusted by their junk food, are now invited back to try their healthy menus.

Similar story also happened in Jakarta few days ago. LG Indonesia announced that they would replace all LG in-store products that were damaged as a result of the flood. By doing this, they bring their relationship with the customers, in this case, the store owners, to the next level. Think of the store owners as LG’s front soldiers. These personnel will have a huge impact in determining who shall win the battle in obtaining the market share of the electronics in Indonesia.

Australia’s McDonald’s has switched a major threat into a new opportunity to get new customers, thus increasing profit. LG Indonesia also followed the trend of changing a problem into new opportunity to expand their market and distribution coverage.

Only few can see a problem as an opportunity, and when these people say that things happen for good reasons, I bet they are right.


Author: Michael A Oei – MarketingFirst Group
Edited by: Melissa Giovanni

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