Mention The Word "multinational"

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Mention the word "multinational", and most people think of borderless mobility—of companies at home everywhere and nowhere, moving huge quantities of men, money and materials around the globe in the restless pursuit of profit. Aurelio Peccei, a director of Fiat, once claimed that the multinational corporation was "the most powerful agent for the internationalization of society". Carl Gerstacker, sometime chairman of Dow Chemicals, confessed that he had "long dreamed of buying an island owned by no nation and of establishing Cartier Replica the world headquarters of the Dow company on the truly neutral ground of such an island, beholden to no nation or society".

Mention of the word multinational also makes people think of global products—of consumers in
Greenwich Village and some village in Bengal drinking identical soft drinks. Theodore Levitt, a marketing guru at Harvard Business School, once argued that companies no longer need to be so "respectful" of local quirks and peculiarities, and that global companies can sell the same ...
... thing in the same way anywhere.

Multinationals should beware of following Mr. Levitt down this path. After a brief flirtation with globalization, companies such as Nestle and Unilever now realize that their local managers represent an invaluable resource. General Electric has broken with its strict practice of dividing its operations into global product lines by setting up a regional headquarters in Asia. Even the most powerful global brand has had to bow before local differences. People in the south of Japan like their Coca-cola slightly sweeter than people in Tokyo, and the company obliges. PepsiCo was puzzled why one of its best-selling products, "7-Up" remained on the shelves in Shanghai until it discovered that, in the local dialect, the phrase means "death through drinking". Even those pillars of American Puritanism, IBM and Disney, have dropped their strict no-alcohol policy in France. Philips Morris has had to make local adjustments to its familiar advertising symbol, Marlboro man: In Hong Kong the advertisement focuses on the horse, because the man reminds locals of coolie, and in Argentina the man was dropped entirely for a while, because cowboys were regarded as low-class wasters. Companies are also learning to their cost that the apparent convergence between different cultures has not gone as far as they thought. EuroDisney failed to take off, among other things, because the company assumed Omega Replica Watches that Micky Mouse and other cartoon characters would be familiar in Europe as they are in the U.S., and did not invest nearly enough in promoting their product.