The MultiNational Mission: Balancing Local Demands and Global Vision

The Multinational Mission, based on six years of research utilizing internal company documents and interviews with over 500 top executives in more than twenty global firms - including General Motors, GTE, IBM, Philips, Brown Boveri, Nippon (a disguised Japanese corporation), Corning Glass Works, Massey Ferguson, and Ciba-Geigy - provides an explicit logic and a basis for top management to act. Using a comprehensive training framework called a responsiveness-integration grid authors C.K. Prahalad and Yves L. Doz show step by step how to formulate and implement strategic decisions that provide a winning innovative approach to competing in the global marketplace. This incisive study begins with the fundamentals: that every business in a global setting is subject to the pressures of central coordination, of the integration of activities across borders ,and of the autonomy of the subsidiaries to respond to local demands. It goes on to show how senior managers can analyze and weigh the impact of essential factors ranging from host and home government intervention, labor unions, customer needs, technological demands, cost reduction, access to raw materials and energy, and distribution, It examines the differing options of firms whose strategic intent is global dominance and those defending domestic markets. And its myriad of real-life examples includes a fascinating look at the strategy of the Japanese manufacturer Komatsu, called Maru-C (encircle Caterpillar) that allowed it to challenge Caterpillar's leadership position in the earth-moving business, and a penetrating analysis of how America's RCA was blindsided by the aggressive offensive of Japan's TV industry. More than an innovative framework to interpret opportunities and build on them, Prahalad and Doz's comprehensive approach considers actual tactics, such as exchanging hostages, for winning the market share battle internationally. Throughout, The Multinational Mission focuses on internal corporate structure