Maryland 2006

Where to go in the global economy and how to get there

College Park, MD, USA
6-7 October, 2006

“The world’s needs and desires have been irrevocably homogenized. This makes the multinational corporation obsolete and the global corporation absolute.”
- Theodore Levitt (1983)

Ted Levitt’s 1983 seminal article in Harvard Business Review provided corporations with the vision of a “global” world – a world where customer tastes and preferences were becoming the same in national markets around the world – and exhorted them to standardize their products, distribution, and marketing across all countries. Thus, globalization (or, global strategy) offered corporations the obvious advantages of economies of scale, greater efficiency, and higher profitability.

Important as his contribution was, Levitt couldn’t have visualized how globalization would evolve in the coming years and decades. As domestic competition and the power of local markets grew, it became imperative for firms to cater to the needs of customers in local markets by adapting their products and marketing strategies to each market they served. And, developments in technology and management practices (e.g., translation software, CNC machines, and mass customization) facilitated the localization of products, marketing, operations, and strategy. In the last 10-15 years, this also led to the emergence of a localization industry.

Today, firms interested in global markets must contend with the intertwined logics of globalization and localization. The “think global – act local” mantra has been around for over a decade. Many companies espouse the principle, but relatively few actually achieve it. Implementing the twin goals of being global and local at the same time requires advanced strategic thinking and the latest technology solutions for localization.

The Digital Economy Forum 2006 brings together, for the first time, strategy and localization industry experts and thought leaders from academia, business, and government to explore the different dimensions of globalization and localization. By attending the Forum, you will learn how to:

• balance globalization and localization to achieve superior results in your global markets
• balance the localization of design, marketing, sales, and service with the globalization of engineering, styling, and manufacturing
• use arbitrage strategies to develop competitive advantage in every market where you do business
• serve customers within the United States with limited English language proficiency
• get the buy-in and support of top management and other key stakeholders for localization initiatives
• manage your global content so that your company and products can be found on the web
• learn from your global ecosystem to further innovation
• assess your organization’s globalization readiness
• achieve global success for small and medium-size enterprises using localization strategies and technologies

Intended for business executives, localization industry professionals, and business school professors, the Forum offers the opportunity to learn from and interact with fellow attendees and leading experts from LISA, University of Maryland, Wharton, Verisign, IBM, the World Bank, DC Office of the Human Rights, Hooksell, Bridge360, and Dig-IT!