January, 2008

Online publications for global manager

As I always say, as I manager looking for more opportunities for your company, you have to keep a close eye on the global market. With the rapid advancement in technology and the ease of transportation, the world market is more reachable than ever before and this trend will continue.

Every morning, when I read my online news papers and go over tons of e-mail I receive, I always look for articles, sites, and publications that give me more insight into my field.
There are plenty of websites and online publications one can read in a particular filed, but only few get you the information you need, at least this is how I see it.
A recent site I visited and found it to be informative and easy to navigate was, Oxford Business Group, their link: http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.comThe site publishes a series of on-line and print publications that, according to the site, have become renowned as the leading source of information for Eastern Europe, North and South Africa, The Middle East and Asia.

Although you need to pay fees to download these publications, you can get lots of valuable information on the site for free.

Expansion through partnership

About seven years ago, I was hired as a business development manager for a small IT firm in Houston, TX. The firm CEO had very ambitious plans to expand the firm operations to cover the global market. At that time, between the years of 1999-2001, the IT industry in the US was experiencing rapid growth and few small firms would think about the global market.

My job was to look around and the search the globe for business partners, I wasn’t giving any strategy on how we would go about our global expansion, the only two tools I had were, the internet and my language skills.

After searching the internet and reading many articles about globalization and business partnerships, I came up with my own strategy for a profitable partnership, “expansion through partnership.”

My strategy was really simple, we were an IT firm, and our competitive advantages were based on:

1- Experienced management team based in the US.
2- Development centers based in the US and India.
3- A team who is ready to re-locate.

I looked for a global business partner who had:

1- Excellent knowledge of the local IT market, what type of IT solutions needed by the local market?
2- Experienced marketing and public relations teams

The idea was to have the local partner find the need for a particular solution, have the Management team in the US handle the project from requirement gathering to final implementation, have the development team in India write the code, and finally implement the solution in the local partner’s market.

This strategy was based on three competitive advantages:

1- Make extensive use of managerial skills readily available in the US
2- Take advantage of low development costs in India
3- Use the local partner to penetrate the foreign market

This strategy also led to creating jobs in all countries involved