Local Globalization

Globalization is the word which is on lips of everyone from a layman to business associate. This practice of "going global" is the most important ingredient of growth. So far, several companies adopted this approach in order to grow and earn high profits by crossing their national boundaries and reaching another economy, another country, and different people with different culture.

What globalization is? There are various customized definition of this concept but in simple terms, we can say that globalization is phenomenon of diluting borders of countries and region and to reach consumers world over. Examples of entities are numerous who adopted globalization e.g., Toyota, Hyundai, McDonald's, Subway, KFC, Citibank, Vodafone so on and so forth.

Let's take the example of everyone's favorite i.e., McDonald's or McD's as it is pronounced mostly. McDonald a retail food chain entered various countries with a grand success. Everywhere people accepted it as part of their country itself. The reason behind is that, though they followed globalization approach but they added a spice of localization. Mere globalization can never generate success, so it should/must be complemented with localization.

Localization refers to adopting and customizing your processes according to the cultural environment of particular place e.g., countries. Taking McDonald's example again, they practiced localization successfully, when they entered India they stopped selling pork and beef burgers and started selling potato burgers to meet the customized need of Indian consumers. Although there methodology, processes, service, outlet design is standardized in every country. This gives us the example of going global with practicing localization.

While travelling I came across somewhat similar thing. I saw SAP building which is originally from Germany and they established their office in India as part of their globalization objectives. But localization can be seen from the point that, they are flagging Indian flag on their building.

There is a tradition to give respect to the nation by lowering down the flag as sunsets. I came across many government buildings who host Indian flag but no one cares to pay tribute. But I was amazed to see such thing happening on some foreign company's site.

The ultimate way to increase your brand image and thereby profitability on foreign land is the right approach of localizing globalization.