The term emerging markets didn’t exist in 1980. Before then, poorer countries of the world were called underdeveloped economies and often the third world. The most charitable term was to call them developing economies. This approach was valid since the poor economies weren’t going anywhere. B…

By virtually every measure - growth in international trade, foreign direct investment or cross-border flows of technology - globalization is becoming increasingly pervasive. Many of the barriers that kept the industries and economies of different countries relatively isolated from one another are…

Ask ten different executives “What is a global company?” and, more likely than not, you will get ten different answers. Some might argue that a global company is one that is pursuing customers in all major economies, in particular the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Others might argue that you ar…

Publishers (Jossey-Bass/Wiley) have just released The Quest for Global Dominance, 2nd edition – a major update to one of the world’s most respected guides to how a company can design, implement, and reassess its global strategy. Co-written by China India Institute’s co-founders Anil K. Gupta a…

Wal-Mart serves as a good example here. It has done well in Mexico Canadaf the U.K., and China but has suffered resounding failures in Germany and South Korea and is struggling in Japan. We present a detailed analysis of the lessons from Wal-Mart’s globalization in chapter three of The Quest for G…

The first major question to ask is: how central are foreign markets to the future of our company? The vast majority of U.S. headquartered Fortune 500 companies still view foreign markets as an add-on supplement to the domestic U.S. market. Very few business leaders have internalized the fact that 75…

Many people think that the coming recession will lead governments in the U.S. and elsewhere to become more protectionist thereby slowing or reversing the ongoing march of globalization. I disagree for the simple reason that companies from the mature developed countries need access to high growth mar…