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Maryland 2006
Developing Your Vision
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!
The Prospects for American Business with China: the Views from Academia and from the Field
Eric Clemons - Professor of Operations and Information Management, Wharton Business School
Eric Clemons shares his views of globalization and his explorations of the future of the Chinese economy. He presents his experience in the context of a theory for balancing local and global functions in the transnational corporation He uses this to provide a context for his observations from several forays into the Chinese marketplace.
Managing Language Access: Catering to Constituents with Limited English Proficiency
Aryan Rodriguez - Language Access Program Director, D.C. Office of Human Rights
Providing access to your products and services to constituents with limited-English proficiency (LEP) can be accomplished in varying degrees and by several measures. This session shows how the local government of the District of Columbia solves this challenge by way of the establishment and management of the District’s Language Access Program pursuant to the District’s local legislative requirements. Topics include:
- How to define “Language Access”
- Getting started – establishing a language access program
- Mission, budget, staff – steps to align all components
- Key Players and their roles – getting their involvement and buy-in
- Government and community partners – developing and maintaining working relationships
- Challenges and barriers – the process of establishing and standardizing a new program within a local government
From Good to Great: Putting the Web to Work
Nick Harrison - Editor-at-Large, External Web Site, The World Bank
The World Bank faces the challenge of reorienting the operation of its external Web sites from a traditional, institutionally based approach to a more targeted and flexible strategy that responds to the needs of very specific worldwide audiences. This session looks at how the Bank is exploring more effective use of its human resources, the adoption of evolving technologies, and more coordinated information management techniques in its efforts to share knowledge and shape actions in economic and social development. The session deals with:
- How one large institutional site evolved, and the lessons that may provide
- Processes for analyzing the state of the site and how to move it forward
- Empowering users
- New directions for greater impact
Global Search: Will They Find You or Your Competitors
Curt Porritt - President, HookSell
During this presentation attendees will learn how to generate more revenue from their localized websites and thereby increase the ROI of both marketing and localization budgets. Participants will learn:
- The huge impact of search engines on global business
- How to achieve top rankings in search engines
- How to get visitors to become customers once they visit your website
- How these issues will affect the localization process
Operational Considerations to Complement Technology
Andrew Draheim - President, Dig-IT! Globalization Consultants
Faster, at lower total cost, on highest levels of quality: in a nutshell, that is what technology infrastructure has sought to achieve for developing, translating, and publishing content where and when it is needed. The session focuses on when and how investments produce returns. Topics include:
- Understanding real business needs to justify investments in technology infrastructure
- Meeting requirements: Case studies for global project management and process automation
- Mastering adaptive challenges imposed on operations by technology implementation projects
How to Audit Your Organization for Globalization-Readiness
Andrew Draheim - President, Dig-IT! Globalization Consultants
Your international strategy is set. Now it is time to increase your competitive flexibility and define specific tactics that will allow you to expand into new markets. Draheim poses the 10 questions you will need to ask every department in your organization to help unleash the globalization potential of your processes, human resources, and intellectual assets.
Globalization and Localization: Will the Twain Ever Meet?
Vinod Jain - Director, Center for International Business Education and Research, Robert H. Smith School of Business
How to actually achieve the twin goals of “think global” and “act local”?
- The different dimensions of “localization” strategy, ranging from language, contextualization, and the 4 Ps of marketing to business model localization
- Making tradeoffs between globalization and localization, and using arbitrage strategies to exploit differences among nations
