Mastering Global Marketing: Strategies for Worldwide Success

Abstract

Summary Introduction to Global Marketing Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that ­benefit the organization and its stakeholders. A company that engages in global marketing focuses its resources on global market opportunities and threats. Successful global marketers such as Nestlé, Coca-Cola, and Honda use familiar marketing mix elements—the four Ps—to create global ­marketing programs. Marketing, R&D, manufacturing, and other activities compose a firm’s value chain; firms configure these activities to create superior customer value on a global basis. The value equation (V = B/P) expresses the relationship between value and the marketing mix. Global companies also maintain strategic focus while relentlessly pursuing competitive advantage. The marketing mix, value chain, competitive advantage, and focus are universal in their applicability, irrespective of whether a company does business only in its home country or has a presence in many markets around the world. However, in a global industry, companies that fail to pursue global opportunities risk being pushed aside by stronger global competitors. A firm’s global marketing strategy (GMS) can enhance its worldwide performance. The GMS addresses several issues. First is the nature of the marketing program in terms of the ­balance between a standardized (extension) approach to the marketing mix elements and a ­localized (adaptation) approach that is responsive to country or regional differences. ­Second is the concentration of marketing activities in a few countries or the dispersal of such ­activities across many countries. Companies that engage in global marketing can also engage in ­coordination of marketing activities. Finally, a firm’s GMS addresses the issue of global market participation. The importance of global marketing today can be seen in the company rankings compiled by The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, the Financial Times, and...