Does managing globalization require new, highly complex management tools and techniques?
AW: Back to basics is not a bad slogan in the dot-com world and the same applies to the globalized world. If companies ignore basic principles they can be doomed. Even so, globalization is incredibly difficult to manage and, for most managers, it is usually more a source of fear than of excitement. First, global management has to be multicultural. Second, it involves mixing and matching skills and ideas from different parts of the world. What will drive companies to be global will be their ability to take the best skills and ideas from wherever they are in the world. JM: If something doesn’t make sense under national management it will be a disaster globally. Companies sometimes fail to export their domestic best practice—for example, Sony should have applied the same managerial standards in Hollywood as it did inside Japan. The more you look at how companies operate globally you see that, as Tom has said, being small and nimble works very well. Technology makes this readily available.
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