Theodore Levitt's Theory of Globalization

To almost all of us, globalization-as a politics, economic, cultural, and technical force-appears basically unstoppable. The ever-faster movement of information throughout the world has made people aware of the tastes, choices, and standards of living of citizens in other countries. Through this information flow, we all have been becoming-at varying rates of speed with least in monetary terms-global citizens. This convergence is controversial, even offensive, to some who consider globalization a threat to their personality and life-style. It isn't amazing, therefore, that globalization has evoked counter forces targeted at preserving variations and deepening a feeling of local identity. Yet, at the same time, we progressively take good thing about just what a global economy has to offer-we drive BMWs and Toyotas, work with an Apple or IBM notebook, communicate with a Nokia mobile phone or BlackBerry, wear Zara clothes or Nike sneakers, drink Coca-Cola, eat McDonald's hamburgers, amuse the kids with a Sony PlayStation, and travel with artist luggage. That is evenly true for the buying patterns of businesses. The market boundaries for IBM global services, Hewlett-Packard computer systems, Standard Electric (GE) aircraft engines, or PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting are no more defined in politics or geographic conditions. Rather, it's the intrinsic value of the products and services that defines their appeal. Enjoy it or not, we are living in a global economy.

Levitt's discussion was about new technology has "proletarianized" communication, carry, and travel, a new commercial reality-the introduction of global market segments for standardized consumer products, Converging Usage Pattern: Almost everyone, everywhere desires global products, wish of modernity, Prefer low prices to meant nationwide characteristics and the planet earth is level. He also argued about Global Organization vs Multinational Corporation and further moreover Multinational corporations has learned a lot about great many countries and adapts to intended differences. Now while doing the critical analysis of his arguments, he suggested strategies that companies should move from multinational to global firm because in his view the market for multinationals was sinking. He found much more scope as it pertains to operate on the Global market. He also suggested that never to conform the superficial variations but make suitably standardized products internationally. Meaning the market for standardized products should be kept global. He urged over making the standardized products global in order to keep up their market worthy of and image. Another idea distributed by Levitt was about offering everyone together high-quality, pretty much standardized products at optimally low prices. This idea was essentially approved to satisfy the needs of everybody as the products will be available at ideal prices. People have a tendency to choose more standardized products so this was the best offer for these people. He also wanted few standardized markets rather than many customized market segments. As a result of this the customization of products was finished and with formulation of few standardized markets the Global firms maintained a better worth instead of going right through the customized marketplaces form. The main strategy proposed by Levitt was, there is no other appeal like price. People like money, and they want to disperse it over as much goods as they can. So if the prices of goods will be available at low and it'll be standardized as well then people will definitely favor to spend money and the most motivational factor for people to buy something is its good quality on low prices. Levitt quoted about the idea of Standardization that "If the company pushes costs and prices down and pressed quality and dependability up while keeping reasonable concern for suitability -customers will favor world standardized products". This assertion has got clear linkage with the above strategies evaluated by Levitt's views.

Now if we put a light on the marketing principles he proposed, in his view the company ought to know more about what customers wishes than the client himself or herself has learned, or at least more than the client can articulate. The successful global firm does not abjure customization or differentiation for the requirements of marketplaces that fluctuate in product tastes, spending patterns, shopping tastes and institutional or legal arrangement. But global companies accepts and adjusts to these dissimilarities only reluctantly, only after relentlessly screening their immutability, after seeking in a variety of ways to circumvent and reshape them. Global strategy and organization has been strong within the last 2 decades. Numerous perspectives have been suggested to examine the issue, and so have numerous prescriptions for businesses facing global competition. On the main one side, these perspectives have enriched our understanding of the complexity of fighting globally. On the other hand, the variety of perspectives creates significant amounts of ambiguity and confusion about how to remain competitive worldwide, about the definition of a global strategy, about why a small business chooses a global strategy, and about the implications of that choice. With out a unified construction to incorporate these diverse perspectives, ambiguity and confusion will probably persist, leading to contradicting ideas and discouraging request of knowledge. Levitt (1983) argues forcefully that advancements in communication and travel technology and increased worldwide travel have homogenized world market segments. Increasingly, consumers in different parts of the earth have a tendency to demand the same products and have the same preferences. On this new period, the strategic imperative for businesses contending globally is to achieve the economies of scale which the global market affords. Thus, multinational firms which treat individual country markets independently are likely to disappear and become substituted by global corporations which sell standardized products the same way everywhere in the world. A major way to obtain competitive advantage has become the ability to produce high-quality products at lowest cost, since global consumers will sacrifice their idiosyncratic personal preferences for the high-quality but low-priced products. Rather than an individual standardized product, they recommend a wide product portfolio, with many product varieties, so that investments on technology and distribution channels can be shared. Cross subsidization across products and markets, and the introduction of a solid world-wide distribution system, are the two moves that find the pleasure of devote these authors' views on how to achieve the game of global chess.

When the global company offers his lower costs internationally, his patronage expands exponentially. He not only reaches into faraway markets, but also attracts customers who recently kept to local preferences and now capitulate to the attractions of lower prices. The strategy of standardization not only responds to worldwide homogenized markets but also expands those markets with ambitious low costs.

According to Levitt (1983), the perfect global strategy is to make a single standardized product and sell it via a standardized marketing program. The essays discussion is usually that the emergence of global markets for standardized consumer products" of your hitherto undreamed-of magnitude. The period of the "multinational company" was sketching to an in depth, Levitt asserted. The future belonged to the "global organization. " The global corporation did not cater to local variations in style. Those distinctions were being overcome by the power of the global organization to advertise standardized products of high quality at a price less than that of competition due to "enormous economies of scale in production, circulation, marketing, and management. " The global corporation was being called forth by a fresh age of "homogenized demand. " A few years earlier, globalization was the new paradigm in international business, however from a branding perspective it offers lost its original efficiency giving the fact that consumers do not appear to feel an association anymore with the standardized products of global organizations, catered to them in mass marketing communication programs. With their centralized decision making, most companies simply discontinued having a reference to the new global market place and neglected its introduction. There are arguments for and against the thought of the globalization of marketplaces. On the one palm, people are steadily seeking high quality/low cost products because of the advancement of technology and communication (Levitt, 1983).

Levitt both overestimated and underestimated globalization. He did not anticipate that some market segments would react against globalization, especially against Traditional western globalization. He also underestimated the power of globalization to change entire nations to actually embrace components of global capitalism, as is happening in the previous Soviet Union, China, and other areas of the world. He was right, however, about the value of branding and its role in forging the convergence of consumer tastes on a global scale. Think about Coca-Cola, Starbucks, McDonald's, or Yahoo. A global product is an important aspect of a worldwide marketing strategy. Something can be explained as global if it can be marketed in different markets, with minimal or nearly no adjustment or adaptation. The focus of your enterprise is on serving global marketplaces with global products. A worldwide product doesn't have to sell in every market. For a few types of products, the U. S. , Japan, and Europe can symbolize 70% (or even 90%) of the world market demand. And within this progressively more homogeneous "triad, many manufacturers can reap the benefits of "universal" product designs. A worldwide product brings benefits to the designer and the buyer. Advantages to the producer are lower costs and economies of size in development and management. The consumer benefits through lower prices, better serviceability, increased quality and constant reliability. However, not absolutely all products may become global products. Studies have discovered that the power of a product to be global significantly is determined by whether the product is undoubtedly being essential and without close substitutes. Globalization which essentially refers to expansion of trade and investment, combined with the expansion in international businesses, and the integration of economies about the world, advanced in 1990's and in the twenty first century. The globalization of business is simple to identify in the get spread around of many brands and services spreads round the world. Forexample, Japanese electronics and automobiles are common in large area of the world. Additionally, companies have grown to be transnational or multinational those are based in one country but have operations in others. For example, Japan/based mostly automaker Honda operates the largest single factory in america, while U. S. structured Coca-Cola operates plants in other countries including France and Belgium with about 80% percent ofthat company's revenue come from abroad sales. Nevertheless, the immediate expansion of globalization that was regarded as a success specifically due to the rapid economic expansion and success of Asian Tigers and Taiwan in early on 1990's, was undermined by these countries major monetary setbacks in the late 90's. A number ofrallies of anti-globalization makes attempted to portrait that globalization is not really a panacea for the world's problems. Their demonstration in every fronts through the Seattle meetings of the World Trade Corporation that turned into a fiasco can be an example. Thus, globalization persists through its agents, i. e. MNE by changing strategies to internationalize theirbusinesses. Prof Ghemawat, (2007) believed that the above mentioned meaning of Levitt still reign the entire world, he however, troubles it and redefined globalization as it'll be discussed later. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) will be the key individuals of globalization, as they fosterincreased monetary interdependence among national markets. The best test to assess whether these MNEs are global themselves is their genuine penetration level of markets across the globe, especially in the extensive triad markets of NAFTA, europe andAsia. A robust force drives the entire world toward a converging commonality, and this drive is technology. It has proletarianized communication, transportation, and travel. It includes made isolated places and impoverished peoples eager for modernity's allurements. Almost everyone everywhere wants everything they have found out about, seen, or experienced via the new systems. The result is a new commercial reality-the emergence of global markets for standardized consumer products on a previously unimagined range of magnitude. Companies targeted at this new reality benefit from substantial economies of scale in production, circulation, marketing, and management. By translating these benefits into reduced world prices, they can decimate opponents that still are in the disabling grip of old assumptions about how the earth works. Ended up are accustomed variations in national or regional preference. Gone are the days whenever a company could sell last year's models-or reduced variants of advanced products-in the less-developed world. And eliminated are the times when prices, margins, and income in foreign countries were generally greater than at home. The globalization of markets is at side. Start, the multinational commercial world nears its end, and so will the multinational firm. The multinational and the global firm are not the same thing. The multinational firm operates in several countries, and adjusts its products and methods in each-at high comparative costs. The global company operates with resolute constancy-at low relative cost-as if the complete world (or major parts of it) were a single entity; it markets the same things in the same way just about everywhere. Which strategy is better is not a matter of opinion but of necessity. Worldwide communications hold everywhere the constant drumbeat of modern possibilities to lighten and boost work, increase living criteria, divert, and amuse. The same countries that ask the globe to recognize and respect the individuality of these cultures insist on the wholesale copy to them of modern goods, services, and solutions. Modernity is not only a wish but also a common practice among those who cling, with unyielding interest or spiritual fervor, to historic behaviour and heritages. Companies may enter in the global market through various sorts of international assets.

Companies might want to make foreign immediate opportunities, (FDI) which allow them to regulate companies and belongings far away. Indeed, the greatest 500 MNEs account forover 90% of the world stock of international direct investment (FDI) and they, themselves, conduct about half the world's trade, (Rugman, 2004). Furthermore, companies may elect to make portfolio ventures, by acquiring the stock of companies far away in order to get control of the companies. They could take part in the international market by eitherlicensing or franchising. Yet another way companies tap into the global market is by developing strategic alliances with companies in other countries. While proper alliances come in many varieties, some allow each company to access the house market of the other and there by market their products as being associated with the well-known coordinator company. This technique ofinternational business also allows a business to bypass some of the difficulties associated with internationalization such as different political, regulatory, and social conditions. The home company can help the multinational company address and conquer these difficulties since it is accustomed to them. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) generally operate of their home region of the triad, or, at best, are bi-regional (competing only across two of the triads of the European union, NAFTA and Asia. Most of the greatest 500 MNEs are considering the deepening of regional trade and investment contracts in Europe, the Americas and Asia. That is a high end area of interestґ of the commonality viewpoint where they argue that the world's evidently becoming more unified and homogeneousґ. However, in essence every part oftheir arguments wrong. Instead of one language, one thirst, one food, one car, etc. there are strong local differences within every part of the triad. Despite their global aspect, some argues that companies must customise their products orservices to meet the needs of varied international markets, and therefore must use a multi-domestic strategy at least in part. For instance, a US fast food companies such as KFC, McDonalds although have a standard approach globally, they adapted their technique to the desire of parts or countries like in China, Japan, Middle-East. KFC released smallerpieces of foods to cater to a Japanese preference, and located restaurants in crowded are as and also other restaurants, leaving independent sites. As a result of these changes, the fast-food restaurant experienced more robust demand in Japan. As Offer, 2008, indicated, for illustration McDonald carefully blends of global standardization and local version generally in most countries. Its menus feature an increasing volume of locally developed items like McVeggie Burger in India, McArabia in Kofta in Saudi Arabia, Kosher food in Israel by still retaining internationally standardized items, i. e. the big Mac and potato fries. Carindustries like Toyota change their product also according to region. Product for the US market and other part of the world differs. As the increasing tide of globalization, some companies may lost just how or make mistakes to set out to create a worldwide strategy. In fact, better results result from strong regional strategies, which is the bridge that connect the neighborhood and global initiatives, and can significantly improve a company's performance. As indicated early, an increasing number ofcompanies regard areas as enabler of cross-border integration because high level ofcross-border integration usually accompany with high level of regionalization. Besides the geographic proximity, the ethnical, administrative and financial proximity also become an important competitive advantage in regionalization and add a significant weight ofsales. Embracing regional strategies requires flexibility and creativity. Managers must be mindful that markets, materials, investors, locations, lovers, and competitors can be all over the world. Successful businesses will take benefit of opportunities wherever they are really and you will be ready for downfalls. Successful managers, in this environment, need to comprehend the similarities and distinctions across national boundaries, in order to make use of the opportunities and offer with the potential downfalls. Once this analysis is complete, managers must establish tactical goals, which are the significant goals a firm seeks to accomplish through a particular pursuit such as coming into a new regional market through considering the above five local strategy model. International strategies make reference to those that solve competition in each country or region on a person basis, whereas global strategy identifies addressing competition within an integrated and all natural manner across country and regional boundaries. Hence, multi-domestic international strategies attempt to appeal to the needs of customers in different countries or areas, while global strategies attempt to standardize products and marketing to work across boundaries.

Levitt will be appreciated by the globe as the person who coined the word "globalization, " but for his ex - students, his colleagues, and his loved ones, he was most importantly a man who could bestow down-to-earth advice as well as ground-breaking theory.

  • More than 7,000 students prefer us to work on their projects
  • 90% of customers trust us with more than 5 assignments
Special
price
£5
/page
submit a project

Latest posts

Read more informative topics on our blog
Shiseido Company Limited Is A Japanese Makeup Company Marketing Essay
Marketing Strength: Among the main talents of Shiseido is its high quality products. To be able to satisfy customers, the company invested a great deal...
Fail To Plan You Plan To Fail Management Essay
Management This report will concentrate on two aspects of project management, their importance within the overall project management process. The report...
Waste To Prosperity Program Environmental Sciences Essay
Environmental Sciences Urban and rural regions of India produce very much garbage daily and hurting by various kinds of pollutions which are increasing...
Water POLLUTING OF THE ENVIRONMENT | Analysis
Environmental Studies Pollution Introduction Many people across the world can remember having walked on the street and seen smoke cigars in the air or...
Soft System Methodology
Information Technology Andrzej Werner Soft System Methodology can be described as a 7-step process aimed to help provide a solution to true to life...
Strategic and Coherent methods to Recruiting management
Business Traditionally HRM has been regarded as the tactical and coherent method of the management of the organizations most appreciated assets - the...
Enterprise Rent AN AUTOMOBILE Case Analysis Business Essay
Commerce With a massive network of over 6,000 local rental locations and 850,000 automobiles, Organization Rent-A-Car is the greatest rental car company...
The Work OF ANY Hotels Front Office Staff Travel and leisure Essay
Tourism When in a hotel there are careers for everyone levels where in fact the front office manager job and responsibilities,assistant professionals...
Strategy and international procedures on the Hershey Company
Marketing The Hershey Company was incorporated on October 24, 1927 as an heir to an industry founded in 1894 by Milton S. Hershey fiscal interest. The...
Check the price
for your project
we accept
Money back
guarantee
100% quality