Making the leap from local player to a global firm often takes the better part of a decade. Owners and executives take the first step by committing to a global mindset. Many executives still view the world from the vantage point of their corporate headquarters. This mindset resembles  the route maps found the in-flight magazine of local airlines, that places Chicago, Taipei, or Helsinki in the center of the globe with routes emanating outward in all directions. Only a small fraction of the planet’s population, however, sees the world in the same way. While your company may be doing very well against local rivals, the performance gap relative to global leaders may be enormous.

Entry into the global economy and WTO accession in particular are forcing managers in many emerging markets to develop a new mental map of the world. There are a few concrete steps they can take to accelerate this process. First, they can simply take a field trip to more developed markets to understand how they are viewed outside their home country. In February 1993, Samsung’s Chairman Lee convened a meeting of 23 senior executives of Samsung Electronics in Los Angeles. Before the meeting began, Lee took the managers to visit local electronics retailers.

The executives were dismayed to find their products often stacked in corners gathering dust, while market leaders like Sony enjoyed prominent position and commanded a price premium. Dismayed by the gap between their self-image and how American consumers perceived their products, the Samsung executives quickly concluded that the only way to global leadership was to improve product technology and brand to the standards set by Sony.  “O wad some Power the giftie gie us,” as the Scottish poet Robert Burns noted, “To see oursels as ithers see us.”  In the next seven months, Lee arranged similar meetings for 1,800 Samsung executives in Japan, Europe and the U.S. so they too could see Samsung as others saw them. The visits to foreign electronics retailers helped jolt Samsung executives out of their parochial mindset, and instill a more global perspective throughout the ranks.

Managers can also commit to a global world view by benchmarking their products, services, and internal processes against world leaders.  Brazil’s Embraer, today the fourth-largest aircraft maker in the world, worked with a US-based consulting company to understand world demand for regional jets and benchmark its products against world leaders.

Benchmarking is easiest to arrange when your company is still too small to worry global leaders. In the early 1990s, Anheuser Busch allowed Brazilian brewer Brahma to study its operations  in great depth, because Brahma at that time was a struggling number two brewer in Brazil.  Less than twenty years later, InBev–the successor firm to Brahma–acquired Anheuser Busch.

Education can also provide a first step in adopting a global perspective. Samsung’s  Chairman Lee studied in Japan and the U.S. before taking the helm at Samsung, and his experience gave him a much broader perspective on global markets.  Managers can take advantage of executive education programs that pull together participants from around the world, or join organizations like the Young President’s Organization that promote learning among their members.

Committing to a global mindset requires a broad view of what it takes to be global. Truly global firms excel not only in the products and services they provide, but also the key processes including operations, governance, post merger integration, information and technology they employ. A useful exercise in broadening your global mindset is identifying the key success factors in your business, surveying your current practices, identifying the best companies in the world in each category, studying their practices, and developing a plan to close the gap. For your industry, it is helpful to learn along the following dimensions:

Which are the best firms in terms of critical processes in your industry (e.g., risk management in banking, new product development in fast moving consumer goods). What processes do they deploy? What can we learn?
Which companies lead in product or service quality? Low price? How do they achieve their leadership?
Which competitors are the most desired employers in our industry? What allows them to attract, retain, and develop the best people?
How do our most sophisticated companies in our industry raise capital? What markets do they tap? How do they raise funds?
Which firms in our industry have the best track record in M&A? What do they do that makes them so successful? Ween have they stumbled? Why?
Do the leading firms in our industry work with partners? Which? Why? How do they structure these partnerships?
Viewing your company from a global perspective can be a rude awakening to local leaders. Many companies recoil from the shock and retreat back to comparing themselves with local rivals. Executives require the intellectual honesty to stare the facts in the face and humility to accept that they may indeed have a very long way to go before they can successfully close the gap with the best companies in the world.

Author: Adrian Collin Png