Globalisation is an attitude of mind as what might now be a slightly descredited economic doctrine.
Many companies are international but few - from talking to friends and contacts - are truly global in the sense that they recruit senior managers from all regions (not just the country in which their head office is located) and display a consistent bottom-up sensitivity to cultural differences.
I mean by this a recognition that business practices vary hugely country by country and culture by culture.
At every level of a company from administration support right up to the CEO, there should be an awareness that "one size fits all" approaches don't always work.
As the world economy implodes, addressing such issues for companies that have fallen behind in efforts to become truly global will be of far less immediate importance than survlval.
Survival might only be possible for those companies that already genuinely think and act globally.
I'll give you an example. One European-located trading company launched a major polymer additives sales push in Indonesia the week before Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Pouring money down the drain in this fashion is the last thing anyone can afford to do in the current climate.
Talking the walk is one thing which Lenova clearly does in this article from The Economist where the Chinese computer manufacturer makes all the right noises about being genuinely global.
Any Lenovo employees out there who would like to comment about how genuine these comments are?
And what about other companies?
