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You are here: Home Moving to Getting Started Making the most of globalisation

07/01/2004Making the most of globalisation

With the countdown to Europe’s historic expansion on 1 May now underway, European business leaders talk about how to work more effectively outside native habitats.

Expanding to a global business has been a necessity at most companies, big and small, for some time. Yet many executives still stumble when they push products across borders and seek customers in diverse foreign markets.

Some European business leaders with successful global track records offer advice on how to avoid problems.

A global marketplace has its advantages but there are risks

Globalisation doesn't mean standardization. Technology has made travel and communications across continents easier, but customer tastes still vary enormously from country to country. Companies need a unique strategy for each place they do business, rather than trying to push the same products or services in the same way across borders.

Procter & Gamble, which has been selling its diapers, detergents and other consumer products in many parts of the world for most of the last century, forgot this lesson in the late 1990s.

For example, P&G tried to alter the European deodorant market, which is 80 percent aerosol, by introducing its Secret solid stick and roll-ons across the Continent. European customers rebuffed those products and P&G's sales and market share slumped.

Under Paul Polman, a Dutchman and P&G veteran who was named president of western European operations two years ago, the company fixed that problem by continuing to push aerosols, too.

Polman knew he had to cater to local habits. In Germany, most customers shop at discounters, many of which don't offer P&G's premium-price diapers and other brands. He launched a media campaign to advertise the superior performance of Pampers diapers, to try to convince customers that the brand is a good value.

Since then, sales of Pampers in Germany have picked up. He also scrapped plans to push some big American-identified brands such as Crest toothpaste throughout the Continent, and instead packaged the product under names that would have local appeal. Crest toothpaste is called Blend-a-Med in Germany and AZ in Italy. Both are selling well.

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