But then, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. And, as we only know too well, all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again. Leading sociologists have alluded that this could be attributed to Humpty’s obesity and bad BMI!
But then I am drifting from the original reason for this post. Firstly, a little flashback for those among us who loathed history classes. In the beginning, there was local business. And then, in the 80’s, it became regional business. Somewhere in the mid 90’s, it was fashionable to become glocal (global + local). But that was just a transitory phase before business truly became global. In this rather rapid journey over the last three decades, Humpty (a.k.a. business) well and truly became obese and lost all local bearings. And now that Humpty is falling like nine pins, it seems (sadly) pre-ordained that all the king's men cannot put Humpty together again.
So then, is there merit in going “back” to the local model of doing business? (albeit re-engineered to suit today’s environment – so that the forward thinkers lobby is not offended at the very thought)
For one, local means that businesses strategize to primarily fulfill demands of their local catchment rather than the profit ratios of their global behemoth. Local also promotes ‘self sufficiency’ rather than hiding inefficiency behind the consolidated balance sheet. Good for the customer and great for the economy. Wow!
The skeptic would argue that this localization would only stifle innovation and cross-fertilization of ideas. On the contrary, the author proposes that innovation would be catalyzed by the co-operative ingenuity and creativity of local enterprise rather than the scale and capital of global corporations.
For all those who say aye, the way forward would be to co-opt the local model into the global way of doing business to suit today’s environment. One among several possible alternatives could be the creation of an ecosystem where independent local businesses participate in a global holding company stock exchange. Purely as an illustration, imagine a global Unilever stock exchange (USE?) where every Unilever country unit gets traded on the merits of its own balance sheet.
Such innovative business models would become the way of the future where local businesses are the engine for driving global businesses (rather than the other way around).
In a nutshell, this post urges Sir Humpty to lose some serious weight around the belly. And if that is not going to be possible, in the very least, he should not be sitting on any walls!
But then I am drifting from the original reason for this post. Firstly, a little flashback for those among us who loathed history classes. In the beginning, there was local business. And then, in the 80’s, it became regional business. Somewhere in the mid 90’s, it was fashionable to become glocal (global + local). But that was just a transitory phase before business truly became global. In this rather rapid journey over the last three decades, Humpty (a.k.a. business) well and truly became obese and lost all local bearings. And now that Humpty is falling like nine pins, it seems (sadly) pre-ordained that all the king's men cannot put Humpty together again.
So then, is there merit in going “back” to the local model of doing business? (albeit re-engineered to suit today’s environment – so that the forward thinkers lobby is not offended at the very thought)
For one, local means that businesses strategize to primarily fulfill demands of their local catchment rather than the profit ratios of their global behemoth. Local also promotes ‘self sufficiency’ rather than hiding inefficiency behind the consolidated balance sheet. Good for the customer and great for the economy. Wow!
The skeptic would argue that this localization would only stifle innovation and cross-fertilization of ideas. On the contrary, the author proposes that innovation would be catalyzed by the co-operative ingenuity and creativity of local enterprise rather than the scale and capital of global corporations.
For all those who say aye, the way forward would be to co-opt the local model into the global way of doing business to suit today’s environment. One among several possible alternatives could be the creation of an ecosystem where independent local businesses participate in a global holding company stock exchange. Purely as an illustration, imagine a global Unilever stock exchange (USE?) where every Unilever country unit gets traded on the merits of its own balance sheet.
Such innovative business models would become the way of the future where local businesses are the engine for driving global businesses (rather than the other way around).
In a nutshell, this post urges Sir Humpty to lose some serious weight around the belly. And if that is not going to be possible, in the very least, he should not be sitting on any walls!
Fair point, Subbu. It's a topical debate/issue - not certain if you've seen these in the current Newsweek (Asia edition) issue:
ReplyDeleteboosting demand for domestic housing as well as, "fragile" China
Am not so certain if this holds true for all geographies tho' - limited int'l work experience - but to my mind, there's enough and more economies to be hand in our region to merit regional strategies, where the consumption/penetration has huge unexploited potential - Will this eventually become the anti-thesis of globalisation, who knows? Time to revisit Ted Levitt, I think.