I retired from personal blogging in July 2008 but you can find me over at blog.xero.com
Follow @roddrury
I was fortunate to have dinner last night with two kiwi, but US based, business heros of mine.
I was taken to task over my promotion of ‘Exporting’. (WHAT! I thought.) Some aspects were that exporting implies win/loose and that its only an aspect of internationalisation. The subject came up again today at the NZTE Beachheads Advisory Board meeting and lead me to think of a model on how companies operate globally (borrowed from the Software Capability Maturity Model [CMM]).
So here it is:
Global Market Maturity Model (beta)
| Level | Characteristics | Examples | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Global Operator | Operates anywhere often partnering with other suppliers and/or a key part in multi-national supply chain. Being from NZ not an issue. | Icebreaker? |
| 2 | Exporter | Actively looks to exports products and services. Often has to overcome objections of being a NZ based company | AfterMail |
| 1 | Nationalist | Looks for local expenditure on local firms. E.g. Buy NZ Campaign. | Local Service Based companies, Telstra (in Australia), Most US Companies. |
| 0 | Procurer (not happy with this title) | Significant spender that doesn’t demonstrate an understanding of the positive economic impact of procurement. Often buys from ‘name’ suppliers for status and perceived risk minimisation. Indiscriminate outsourcing. | Many Government Departments, Local Bodies, Telco’s |
So there is a first cut. I’d like to use this at a few upcoming events so please give feedback. Is this a good model? Better definitions? Better title for level 0? Example companies? Right name for the model?
blog
Great post Rod. I wrote an opinion piece in the DominionPost a few years ago around the theme “Exports are not enough.” Essentially I argued that people (and companies) need to get past “exporting good, offshoring bad” and build real international businesses (your level 3 players), with design, supply, sales and fulfilment wherever it makes most sense. The way to build national wealth is to own truly global businesses (with sales and fulfilment channels), not just make things and ship them. Wherever head office is still be surounded by lots of high value jobs (design, marketing, finance, IT) and high value support businesses (travel, finance, early stage manufacture, IT, advertising). Nokia has operations all over the world, it’s a really international company (English is its official internal language)and Finland enjoys hundreds of service businesses clustered around its head office. Do they care that most of their handsets are made elsewhere? I think not.
People laughed when the ICT Industry Task Force came up with 100 companies with $100 million turnover each as a 10 year goal. I reckon it’s more achievable now than ever before. $1m per employee is definitely doable. (Just showing I read another of your posts).
[...] I got my Global Market Maturity Model in. To be Global we need to be connected (Broadband). See post from Juha. [...]