Page 21 - Cross-Border Magazine Nr.3

~ GRIN ~ ~ Global Organizations ~

product assortment, marketing, and public relations strategy interviewed achieves this by “keeping teams small, keeping
directly according to local market preferences. Occasionally, communication really open, and being extremely transpar-
local offices will serve an underlying strategic purpose as well. ent about numbers.” Organizations such as 3M and Nestlé
One online-only retailer we interviewed, for example, opened use globally shared information centers to help decentralized
up an office in Italy both to maintain strong relationships teams maintain alignment with business strategy.
with its Italian wholesalers, and because there were fewer
hiring and wage restrictions in Italy than there were in the • Develop a clear framework for making budgetary decisions.
company’s domestic market. As a result, this company was Similarly, retail leaders must be sure that all capital alloca-
able to localize its Italian website at a heavily discounted cost. tions are made based on accurate information instead of
loosely held assumptions. To ensure that all key stakeholders
4. A hybrid “glocal” model, utilizing both a centralized strategic have the opportunity to weigh in on big decisions, create a
team and in-market execution teams. While it’s important to global governance committee with representatives from fi-
give local teams the freedom to innovate however they see fit, nance, operations, logistics, technology, and marketing teams.
there are certain specialized commerce functions (e.g., digital, It’s critical to have country natives involved in this process
SEO, brand creative) that may be executed more efficiently who can confirm and provide cultural context around any
and less expensively when managed by a single expert team external data and guidance.
across the entire organization. A glocal organizational
structure allows local management to focus only on the least • Benchmark company standards and create an actionable plan
commoditized tasks—strategically standardizing and sharing to address any regional shortcomings. Executives we spoke
certain functions across business units and geographies. For with agreed that it was almost impossible to push out one
example, one organization we spoke with centralizes its core set of standardized success metrics that made sense for the
eCommerce function. This means that locally knowledgeable entire org. Undoubtedly, there will always be certain metrics
regional teams get to serve as the voice of the customer— with fundamental regional differences that can’t be overcome:
owning customer-facing functions such as digital marketing, “Our Australian stores are going to have to ship merchandise
social media, and website experience—while a tenured global from Europe, and that is just a point of fact around geog-
vice president of eCommerce takes care of digital technology raphy,” one executive underscored. “There’s no way that our
execution. stock turn standards in Australia can be the same as our stock
turn standards in Europe.”
High-functioning teams are the lynchpin of an effective
global organization This being said, retailers must work towards implementing
shared standards that help teams align with one another. Start
In a global organization there will likely be a number of execu- by formalizing processes around how metrics are reported, and
tives involved in every key decision, and each of these cross- then build out targets for core KPIs and user experience metrics
functional stakeholders will have different perspectives and be (website visits, bounce rate, and conversion rate, page load times
able to contribute different types of information to the issues at etc.) that country teams can adjust to their local needs when
hand. In order to balance differing viewpoints and ensure that necessary. This will allow the global leadership team to easily see
teams and individuals are working together symbiotically, global when one region is falling short in a particular area, and then
retailers must: : work together with country management to develop a plan and
assign accountability for addressing these shortcomings.
• Implement processes that help to preserve the company cul-
ture. Hiring native talent unlocks local consumer insights and Act like a startup, no matter what your size
relationships that would be impossible to access otherwise,
but bringing in “outsiders” can be seen as a threat to the com- As international headcount grows and business operations be-
pany culture.. When opening up a new office in an unfamiliar come increasingly complex, global organizations must conscious-
region, be sure to have formalized onboarding procedures ly work to maintain their agility and resourcefulness. Mirroring
and office-wide culture-building exercises in place that will small startups, successful retailers will:
help to preserve your company’s internal ethos. One executive
told us that her company’s new hires are tasked with com- • Use design templates to ideate their business strategy. Col-
pleting a set of culture-building onboarding activities before laborative tools and templates like The Business Model
doing anything else in their new role. Canvas can help to ensure that all stakeholders have a shared,
comprehensive understanding of their organization’s business
• Communicate an expectation of collaborative information model in each region. In order to expose strategic and logisti-
sharing. To become a truly agile organization in which team cal shortcomings upfront, it’s critical to incorporate local
leaders have the confidence to try new things in new ways, expertise into the design process.
you must ensure that management has access to near real-
time, validated customer and business data. One company we • Look to industry peers for guidance. It’s easy to forget that

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