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Informed by the findings of McKinsey and Company's extensive investigations of the problems and practices of globalizing firms, this text contends that the rewards of building a great global firm in the late 1990s are extrordinary.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Preface(p. vii)
• Introduction(p. xiii)
• Part I The Race
• 1 The Transition Economy(p. 3)
• 2 Running the Race(p. 39)
• 3 Midgame Strategies: Gaining the High Ground(p. 67)
• 4 Keeping Control of Your Destiny: The Market-Capitalization Imperative(p. 97)
• Part II Winning the Race
• 5 The Nature of the Challenge(p. 133)
• 6 A Strategy for the Transition Economy(p. 155)
• 7 Building Intangible Capital(p. 177)
• 8 Winning the World Through Slivers(p. 207)
• 9 Cross-Geographic Arbitrage(p. 235)
• 10 Strategy Once More: Building Global Value Propositions(p. 261)
• 11 Shaping the Future(p. 279)
• Notes(p. 311)
• Index(p. 337)
• About the Authors(p. 363)

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Chapter One THE TRANSITION ECONOMY Today, almost 20 percent of world output--about $6 trillion of the $28 trillion world gross domestic product (GDP)--is produced and consumed in global markets. In these markets all the world's consumers have access to all products because industry structures exist to deliver output everywhere. Most consumers, then, have limited access to 80 percent of world output because products are being delivered primarily through local or national industry structures. But this will change.     Within thirty years we estimate at least 80 percent of world output will be in global markets. By then, worldwide GDP will be $91 trillion, so the globally accessible arena could be $73 trillion--a twelvefold increase in thirty years (Exhibit 1-1). Thirty years may seem a long time, but it is not if you consider that far more economic integration will occur, if our prediction comes true, than was achieved in the previous 13,000 years of economic history.     As global markets form in food, health care, telecommunications, media, accounting, pulp and paper, chemicals, and most other industries, the profit opportunities will be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.     Consider personal financial services. The global market for personal financial services currently represents a $300 billion annual pretax profit opportunity. Over just the next decade, this profit pool will continue to grow at its historical pace to $600 billion. But the market will also integrate. Until recently, regulations and technology limits have kept this market segmented. Therefore, no one participant has been able to capture more than 2 percent of the total global profit pool. Soon this entire market will be accessible to all players. Anyone who can capture 10 percent of this market will produce annual profits of about $60 billion--ten times the profits of the leading nationally based personal financial service providers in 1997.     In an economy without geographic boundaries, the rules change. The good news is that companies increasingly will have access to the best resources the world has to offer: the most talented labor, the most extensive customer markets, the most advanced technology, and the lowest-cost, highest-quality suppliers of goods and services. With such rich resources at their disposal, creative business people can go as far as their imagination, intelligence, and nerve will take them. But the risks are high because every business will be competing with the best in the world and because integrating markets are filled with volatility and uncertainty. Even those that now dominate their national and local markets will face white-hot competition. They will have to realize that what they have been calling global strategies are in reality little more than international expansion tactics.     During the transition, familiar geographically constrained economies will coexist with an emerging global economy, resulting in a confusing picture. But in confusion lies opportunity. To find opportunities in the transition economy, it is necessary to step back and reflect on the way in which geography has influenced the shape, size, business practices, roles, and economics of industries and markets. THE POWER OF GEOGRAPHY In the Pulitzer prize-winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel , Jared Diamond explores the influence of geography on human history. He argues that a people's geography--comprising the food resources, climate, terrain, proximity to other peoples, raw materials, and technology accessible in their native land--is the key determinant of how societies and economies evolve: "History followed different courses for different people because of differences among people's [geographic] environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves" (25).     Diamond tells the story of a Polynesian people, the Maori, who settled in the Pacific Islands between the years 1200 B.C. and 500 A.D. (Diamond, 53-56). We retell this ancient story here because it provides a clear example of both the potential and peril of economic integration and demonstrates the interaction of three key economic effects: access, specialization, and scale.     Some of the Maori colonized the Chatham Islands, with important economic effects on their economic development. While those ancestral Maori who first colonized the Chathams may have been farmers, Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the new arrivals had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers. Because, as hunter-gatherers, they did not produce crop surpluses for redistribution or storage, they could not support and feed non-hunting activities. Their prey were seals, shellfish, nesting seabirds and fish that could be captured by hand or with clubs, requiring no more elaborate technology. In addition, the Chathams are relatively small and remote islands, capable of supporting a total population of only about 2,000 hunter-gatherers. With no other accessible islands to colonize, the[y] ... had to remain in the Chathams. (55-56)     The Chatham Islanders had access only to each other and to the relatively sparse natural resources of their two isolated islands. Their economy could develop only to a primitive level. They lacked access to what they might have needed to develop a surplus: trading partners or agricultural techniques appropriate to their climate. They achieved economic equilibrium and remained hunters and gatherers for centuries.     Other Maori colonists, who settled in northern New Zealand, found a warmer climate that allowed them to employ their traditional agricultural methods and to accumulate surplus food. Those Maori who remained in New Zealand increased in numbers until there were more than 200,000 of them. They developed locally dense populations chronically engaged in ferocious wars with neighboring populations. With the crop surpluses that they could grow and store, they fed craft specialists, chiefs and part-time soldiers. They needed and developed varied tools for growing their crops, fighting and making art. (65)     As their economy grew, it supported increasingly specialized, larger-scale economic activity. But every economy has natural limits to growth. If these cannot be overcome, the economy will stop growing and specialization and scale benefits will also be limited. The Chatham Islanders had reached their limit at a very primitive level of development. The northern New Zealanders faced limits as well--an agriculture-based island economy can support only so many people.     Growing beyond these limits required increased access. In 1835, "an Australian seal-hunting ship visiting the Chathams en route to New Zealand brought the news to New Zealand of islands where there is an abundance of sea and shellfish; the lakes swim with eels; and it is a land of the karaka berry ... The inhabitants are very numerous but they do not understand how to fight and have no weapons" (57). In short order, an expedition of New Zealand warriors set forth for the Chathams promptly and slaughtered the Chatham Islanders.     Diamond's book provoked us to think about the influence of geography on the development of different industries and competitors within those industries. When we talk about geographic constraints, we mean not only physical obstacles such as mountains, oceans, and distance but also other geographic barriers to free economic exchange including interaction constraints (differences in language, standards, protocols, and cultural norms) and legal-regulatory constraints (tariffs, product-market restrictions, labor restrictions, and capital controls).     Business competition has evolved largely in response to the existence of strong geographic barriers to competition. What has differentiated economic winners from economic losers has been the ability to overcome these barriers. In a world bound by geography, privileged access to markets has been the overwhelming determinant of success. Just as geography has determined which human cultures wound up with particular economic advantages, it has also influenced which businesses wound up with competitive advantages. And as barriers erode, business competition changes. This is as true in the transition economy as it was in northern New Zealand. Indeed, the fate of the Chatham Islanders offers a cautionary tale: In the transition economy, sticking to your local markets and functioning in economic isolation makes you terribly vulnerable.     Different competitors, like different societies, have natural advantages derived from their geographic starting points. In particular, they enjoy differences in access, opportunities to specialize, and the ability to achieve scale effects. From an economist's point of view, specialization effects are the benefits gained from organizing work so that it is undertaken by the producers with the highest relative skill in performing each work activity. Scale effects are the benefits gained by being able to spread the fixed costs of production over a wider base, thus lowering average unit costs. Just as the northern New Zealand economy provided greater access, specialization, and scale benefits than the Chatham Island economy, companies growing up in large, integrated markets such as the United States or Japan have historically had much greater access to customer bases, technology, supply alternatives, and labor forces than companies operating in smaller or less economically developed or integrated economies.     However, a starting point is just a starting point. It is what you do with your native advantage that counts. Even more important than the opportunities provided by the economic home base has been skill in overcoming geographic boundaries. Companies such as Nestlé, Unilever, Shell, and ABB have proved enormously successful despite originating in small countries. A company that can systematically overcome geographic barriers gains new access, specialization, and scale advantages that lead to an even greater ability to overcome still wider geographic boundaries. This is not a new approach. Throughout history, economic advantage has been gained by leveraging these three effects. But the means of overcoming geographic constraints has changed greatly.     Once this was a matter of military skill. In the sixth century B.C., the Romans developed military and political techniques superior to those of its Etruscan rulers. Once free of the Etruscans, Rome used these same techniques to take advantage of political disarray among the Greek colonies of southern Italy, gaining control of the bulk of the peninsula by the third century B.C. As Rome's political and military influence grew, it overcame the geographic barriers that had historically limited social and economic integration. Roman roads facilitated the passage of armies and goods. The introduction of Roman coinage in 289 B.C. and the spread of Latin as a lingua franca facilitated economic interaction. Roman law, dating from the fifth century B.C., established a legal framework for social order and for commerce.     Imperial expansion brought access to new sources of labor and raw materials, as well as an enlarged network of trade routes stretching from present-day England to India. Geographic expansion, prosperity, and growing consumer demand made possible increasing specialization of industries such as metal working in Gaul and luxury goods in the eastern Mediterranean. During its period of expansion, Rome was also able to gain scale effects, funding the costs of the empire by taxing subject territories and spreading its military officers over an army recruited from the provinces. Rome as an "active agent" became adept at overcoming geographic barriers, creating a reinforcing virtuous cycle of geographic expansion. As it acquired greater geographic access, it developed increasing opportunities to gain specialization and scale effects. At its economic height in the early second century A.D., the Roman Empire created an integrated economic area embracing most of western Europe, North Africa, and the Near East.     In modern times, the active agent of economic integration shifted from conquerors to corporations. Consider the rise of Standard Oil. The modern oil industry was born in 1859 when Edwin Drake successfully drilled for oil in western Pennsylvania. In its first decade, the industry was plagued with overcapacity and boom-or-bust cycles. Every new find depressed prices, as did each entrant that eagerly built a new refinery. John D. Rockefeller's genius lay in recognizing early on that preponderant scale would be necessary to bring order to the industry. In his words, "the larger the volume the better the opportunities for the economies, and consequently the better the opportunities for giving the public a cheaper product without ... the dreadful competition of the late '60s ruining the business." Rockefeller also recognized that access to suppliers and markets would be crucial to achieving scale.     In the formative years of the oil industry, access was rooted in geography. In the pivotal decades of the 1860s and 1870s, crude oil was produced only in the relatively inaccessible region of western Pennsylvania, and a majority of petroleum products were exported to Europe through Atlantic ports. By entering the industry through refining, Rockefeller placed himself at the center of the emerging network of petroleum flows. He then set about weakening the power of the railroads. His first refinery was built in 1863 at the conjunction of a waterway and a railroad line in Cleveland, giving him the leverage to negotiate favorable transportation rates from the oil fields and to the major terminals on the East Coast. He obtained concessions from railroads by promising constant, high-volume shipments and the necessary capacity by acquiring distressed competitors. In 1872, a scheme to establish a double cartel of refiners and railroads collapsed, but not before Rockefeller used the threat of denying others access to rail transport to buy up twenty-two of the twenty-six other Cleveland refineries. As the Standard Oil empire grew, it expanded its arsenal of competitive weapons: monopolizing the supply of tank cars to increase its stranglehold on rail transport, taking over East Coast oil terminals to control the flow of exports to Europe, and becoming the predominant builder and operator of the pipelines that served new wells in Pennsylvania. From drillhead to refinery to terminal, Rockefeller controlled access to the growing web of oil flows. Competitors had no choice but to sell out, and by 1877 he controlled 90 percent of U.S. refining capacity.     Rockefeller's strategy throughout was to use sheer size to dominate relationships with shippers and to use those relationships to increase his empire. By playing competing shippers against one another and controlling key components of the transportation system such as tank cars and pipelines, Rockefeller was able to create a virtuous cycle of geographic expansion based on ever-increasing access advantages and scale. Ultimately, by integrating backward into crude oil production and forward into retail distribution, he built Standard Oil into the world's biggest company.     Not everyone who has attempted to be an active economic agent has enjoyed such success. The history of geographic expansion is littered with the failures of those who didn't quite get the formula right. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the finest factory-made silk in the world was produced in Italy using techniques held secret for hundreds of years. In 1716, Thomas Lombe brought these techniques to Britain, where silk was made by hand. He set up a water-powered mill, hired people to run it, and began production. Lombe's strategy of specialization might have worked, but he lacked access to a sufficient volume of affluent consumers in Britain to generate scale effects, and his innovative factory failed. OVERCOMING MODERN GEOGRAPHIC BARRIERS During this century, many of the most important geographic barriers have been man-made. After World War II, most national governments imposed controls on capital flows, foreign exchange, and interest rates, thus limiting capital mobility. Restrictions on national markets for goods, services, and labor, while promoting stability, dampened international economic activity by restricting access. Trade was frequently limited through tariffs and other barriers. Policies were put in place to subsidize or protect certain industries.     Such legal restrictions led individual nations to establish idiosyncratic industry and market structures. Bounded by regulation, consumer preferences, and culture, national and local economies evolved in distinct ways. There are local rules on how to compete for customers, labor, and capital. Often some parts of a business are overpriced relative to costs, and this overpricing helps subsidize the entire system. In telecommunications, for example, international calls might subsidize the system in some countries. In others, it might be interregional domestic calls or installation and user charges. In some countries, business customers might be favored at the expense of consumers; in others, the reverse.     The same is true within a country. In the United States, the practice of law differs so much by state that lawyers must qualify in each state in which they wish to practice. Fees earned for the same legal specialty vary enormously from state to state. Similarly in banking: until the 1990s, the states determined whether a bank could branch across state lines.     It is easy to understand why a company that grew up in a geography with one set of rules and customer preferences generally has great difficulty entering another geography--even though the industry may appear very similar. Lacking access to local knowledge, customers, regulators, and politicians, foreign companies have struggled to penetrate local markets.     Some, however, have proved capable of overcoming geographic boundaries. Through hard work and patience, these active agents gained access to new customers, raw materials, labor, and technologies. As a result, they developed the capability to integrate over a wider geographic area, which enabled them to gain specialization and scale effects--leading to virtuous cycles of the sort enjoyed by the Romans and Rockefeller.     For many years, successful companies followed two basic geographic expansion strategies: multilocal and global . The multilocal approach involves becoming an insider in multiple markets. This approach depends on gaining access to advantages not enjoyed by others--privileged access. Multilocal companies leveraged intangible assets of course, but privileged access to capital was the power behind much of their success, allowing them to acquire local companies or build the local plants and distribution needed to become an insider.     Multilocals have historically operated in other geographic markets by building or acquiring a full business system in each geographic market--establishing production, acquiring access to local distribution channels as well as local talent, becoming adept at operating within local protocols and standards, sourcing local capital, and gaining regulatory approval. Nestlé, ABB, and Shell used this approach to cross national barriers. Bank One and the Hospital Corporation of America are examples of large companies that used this approach to overcome barriers within a single nation, the United States.     From the 1960s on, global companies began to emerge. The global approach leverages either specialization or scale effects (or both) to overcome geographic barriers in order to create a global market for a particular good or service. Companies seeking to globalize their products faced a set of challenges different from that facing the multilocal player: creating global demand and establishing global standards. Boeing's scale advantages in airframes and Canon's specialization advantages in 35 mm camera technology allowed them to deploy a classic global approach. In each case, their advantage "bought" them privileged access to local markets without making much local investment because local distributors and customers wanted their products so badly.     In a strange way, these global companies have much in common with the most local companies. As classic global companies grew up, they often relied on a single home-based research and development arm, located their production facilities largely in one country, and either developed a single "fly-in" or local representative sales force or relied almost exclusively on local distribution.     Global companies extrapolate what works in their own local market to the world. They are often run by managers from their home countries, and they use expatriates offshore. Their success is dependent on the quality and price of what they produce because they make little attempt to tailor to local tastes.     Global companies usually flourished in relatively large national economies where they could benefit from significant access, specialization, and scale effects. This enabled them to develop intangible assets such as patents and proprietary production techniques. Much of their success, however, was due to their access to as much capital as they needed. Historically, only a few companies succeeded by leveraging intangibles to expand globally with little reliance on physical capital. (Bechtel's leverage of its engineering talent is a rare example.)     In the last ten to fifteen years or so, leading multilocal and global companies have begun to converge around a global-local or "transnational" model , which combines the best features of the multilocal and global approaches. This powerful model used by many successful companies relies on increasing the use of internal integration to capture global specialization and scale effects, while using local approaches to gain privileged access.     All these models--multilocal, global, and global-local--rely on integrating business activity across geography. They also rely on building and owning the entire business system, allowing for local distributors or captive suppliers where economical or appropriate. ENTERING THE TRANSITION ECONOMY The multilocal, global, and transnational models are built on privileged access to geography, capital, and technology. Now, however, we are moving toward an economic era in which privileged access will be rare if not impossible. Three forces are working together to lower most geographic barriers that have constrained economic integration since the end of World War II.     First, national governments, under market pressure, are removing the legal and regulatory barriers to international economic interaction and welcoming those who have the ingenuity to turn possibilities into economic growth and profits. Second, a genuinely global capital market of enormous proportions has formed and is searching for returns. Participants who use capital wisely have incredible opportunities, as it has never been easier to tap into the capital markets. But this market is a harsh taskmaster. It rewards those who produce the results it demands but punishes those who don't. Third, rapid advances in digital technology are causing communication and computing costs to plunge. These combined forces are greatly reducing the importance of geographic barriers to commerce. Access for all Governments everywhere now understand they have no alternative to opening their national economies to world-class suppliers of intangible capital. Local companies that want to remain competitive seek to partner with world-class participants that have the intellectual property, talent, brands, and networks to compete in global markets. When governments open up their economies, they gain access to the skills and capabilities that companies based in other geographies have been developing for decades. In return, these companies have access to many more consumers hungry for their world-class products and services. Local companies can purchase internationally competitive inputs and know-how, dramatically raising their productivity. All players have the opportunity to generate vast new economic wealth.     Until the late 1980s, there seemed little reason to expect the world's closed economies to give up the centralized management of state enterprises. Over the past decade, however, we have experienced a political and economic revolution. Around the world, governments and powerful insiders who sought to control national economies are in retreat. There has been wholesale privatization of state-owned assets in both developed and developing economies. Capital accounts are opening up as exchange and other monetary controls are lifted and foreign capital flows more freely. The shift to economic liberalism and to market-based economies is one of the defining political events of the late twentieth century, and it has happened nearly everywhere with remarkably few exceptions.     This shift has not occurred because entrenched political and business leaders worldwide suddenly underwent a road-to-Damascus conversion about the benefits of doing business in an open, competitive economy. Rather, it became apparent that a certain historical approach was bankrupt. After forty years of growing state intervention in national economies, state-led development finally ran out of steam.     In many countries, the money quite simply ran out. Massive debts could no longer be serviced. Most spectacularly, we saw the collapse of the centrally planned economies of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Across Latin America, we have witnessed a remarkable turnaround--from a world of import substitution and capital controls to policies that are both pro-market and pro-foreign investment. Even China has partially embraced capitalism, fueled by the influence of the extended diaspora of 57 million Chinese.     These formerly closed societies have not been the only ones violently rocked. The financial market crisis that hit Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and South Korea in 1997 and 1998 has reminded us how these relatively open countries nevertheless followed a central planning, state-subsidized economic model that used regulatory control over market forces and the banking system to achieve national objectives. All of these countries are now moving (however reluctantly) down the road of fundamental economic reform: removing restrictive regulation, eliminating protections and subsidies, and reforming the banking system.     Many politicians around the world do not like the loss of government control over economies. In the late summer of 1998, with emerging market countries from Southeast Asia to Russia experiencing severe economic downturns, there was talk of a globalization backlash and wishful thinking by some that the clock could be turned back. But turning the clock back is not only impossible, it is wrongheaded. The central problem with such thinking is the overwhelming evidence that open economies do better than closed economies. Hong Kong and mainland China are right next door to each other. Fifty years ago, there was not much difference in the per capita GDP. Today in Hong Kong it is $20,493 (adjusted for purchasing power parity); in mainland China the figure is $3,561 even after a decade of spectacular growth. Simply put, countries with open economic policies where the government has played a modest role by keeping taxes low and minimizing state ownership have done better than countries pursuing more interventionist paths (Exhibit 1-2).     As a result, an enormous array of hitherto closed markets is now offering real access to nonlocal players. Consider banking. In most of these formerly closed countries, foreign banks are being invited in for the first time. Many local banks have bankrupted themselves through a combination of government-directed loans to state-sponsored companies and ill-advised speculative lending to well-connected insiders. As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank provide money to bridge the short-term crisis, foreign banks are being encouraged to step in with a more fundamental, long-term fix.     Perhaps less dramatic, but with equally important economic consequences, has been the deregulation of government, service, and utility sectors in many developed nations. A number of European countries, most notably the UK, realized that they can no longer afford the lethal mixture of increasing entitlements and slowing growth. They also realized the deep inefficiencies inherent in their utilities systems. As a result, global companies are emerging in the electricity supply industry, telecommunications, and water and waste management. In the future, we expect to see the emergence of global powerhouses even in education and health care provision.     It is true that in some countries the day of reckoning does not seem to have arrived just yet. Despite massive increases in the contingent liabilities of the public sector (such as underfunded social security systems) in France, Italy, Germany, and other European countries, there remains a fundamental reluctance to play by a more open set of rules. Many have met the new debt-to-GDP requirements of impending monetary union by raising taxes rather than by reducing the role of government. Japan continues to drag its feet on economic liberalization, although the Asian financial crisis is accelerating reforms there as well. One way or another, the threat of financial crisis in nation after nation is forcing reform, and with reform, access.     Indeed, the real problem for companies going forward is no longer gaining access; rather, it is managing the risks of this more open economy. Laws and regulations are becoming far less important barriers to competition. By the same token, governments can no longer protect weak players from competition. (Continous...)

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Library Journal Review

International expansion tactics must be replaced by true global strategies over the next 30 years to tap into growth in output stemming from global markets, according to this team from McKinsey & Co. They make a strong argument that the entire corporate thought process and organization structure must change in order to maximize the benefits. Many factors have altered the rules of the raceÄderegulation in developed countries has created new avenues of competition, technology has lowered costs, local companies now tap into world-class powers, and the ability to cater to "customer segments of one" has expanded customer choice and bargaining powerÄleading national governments to ease barriers. Thus, a geographically bounded market, with "protective regulations, loyal customers, known competition, and known technology gives way to an increasingly unbounded world filled with unfamiliarity, complexity, and uncertainty." The problem for global companies is no longer one of gaining access but managing risk. For the informed decision-maker.ÄSusan DiMattia, "Library Hotline" and "Corporate Library Update" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Ultimately it does not matter if this book, written by four McKinsey management consultants, proves completely correct, because the authors have gone a long way toward framing the debate about the best ways for American corporations to compete globally. In methodical, step-by-step fashion, the consultants explain the changing international landscapeÄhow various forces are causing economies worldwide to integrate at an unprecedented rateÄand what corporations need to do to capitalize. (Two keys are to dominate completely one or more slivers of a global market and to remain agile at all times.) Their logic is convincing, even if the writing is a bit dense (subheads such as "Disaggregating and Structuring Business Operating Risks" are common). There are certainly other points of view: countless books have talked about establishing joint partnerships as the best way to expand overseas. And last year, McKinsey competitor Cyrus F. Friedheim Jr., vice chairman of Booz Allen Hamilton, argued in The Trillion Dollar Enterprise that alliances were the way to go. The best bet for executives interested in expanding overseasÄand that should be all of themÄis to add this book to their list of resources and devise their own best strategy. 50,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Offering guidance on how to build a truly great global firm, this timely, well-written volume focuses on new and useful ideas about strategy in today's fast-paced and integrated world economy. In the first part of the book (the first four chapters), titled "The Race," the authors describe today's global transition economy and explain how and why it is much more integrated than ever before. The second part ("Winning the Race," chapters 5-11) deals with strategic ways of thinking about integrating the world economy. The authors present ideas about how to effectively utilize intangible assets including talent, knowledge, brands, relationships, and reputation, and they incorporate company case examples such as Coca-Cola, Citigroup, IBM, AT&T/other-Bells, Intel, and Dell to clarify ideas. Drawing from their collective professional experiences as consultants with McKinsey & Company, the four authors provide an easy-to-read guide about creating and fostering a winning global corporate strategy. Highly recommended for managers and consultants, this excellent reference is also valuable for upper-division international business students and academicians. J. W. Leonard; Miami University

Booklist Review

Within the last year or so, consultants at McKinsey and Company have preserved the efforts of their work in a number of books outlining best practices in various fields. Bryan and his fellow authors are all McKinsey consultants who work with clients doing business or hoping to do business globally. In addition to insights gained from clients, the consultants conducted an intensive three-year study of 25 companies recognized as global leaders. What they discovered, to their surprise, was that there were no common best practices and that each of those companies was struggling in different ways. The authors admit that they failed to appreciate the extent to which the "world's collective economy was moving on to a new phase of integration that involved far more than simply expanding [geographic reach]." The key to growth, they conclude, is "more about building unassailable value propositions than gaining access to markets," and they use examples from their study to illustrate their argument. --David Rouse

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Lowell Bryan, Jane Fraser, Jeremy Oppenheim, and Wilhelm Rall are consultants with McKinsey and Company.