Multinationals must ‘glocalise’: Salzman
Lara Sinclair

MULTINATIONALS are in deep trouble because they’re failing to understand that the key to their future relies upon them understanding and embracing the differences from market to market around the world, or “glocalisation”, according to trend analysts and strategic insight professionals Marian Salzman and Ira Matathia.

The pair conducted a study entitled “Wired & Wireless” for the Euro RSCG agency network which surveyed technologically-savvy consumers in 19 cities around the world in a bid to provide a picture for marketers of the “digital lifestyle” early adapters see themselves embracing in the future.

Salzman said the opportunities for marketers included high-tech companies that were able to establish links with the past (tying in with consumers’ desire to do the same), the whole-hearted adoption of permission marketing principles, and utilising buzz or viral marketing—reflecting the fact that the most relied-upon source of information for consumers is still word of mouth.

She said in the rush to globalisation, that term became synonymous with modernisation and westernisation for most multinationals. However, she said the understanding today was “that’s not the way it’s going to be”: rather companies should embrace “glocalisation”.

Salzman nominated McDonald’s as an example, saying the restaurant chain “faltered as a multinational until it realised it needed to make its menu palatable to local tastebuds”.

Thus the chicken korma sandwich became the best-seller in McDonald’s in London.

Matathia said wireless would overtake wired as the most important technology. One Sydney-based respondent to the survey said the technology they were most waiting for was “wireless computing. Global roaming, so I can do my e-mails from the park bench”.

“As mobile penetration increases and next generation infrastructure emerges, wireless will overtake wired,” Matathia said.

The study found the wireless capitals of the world were Tokyo, Helsinki and Tel Aviv.

However, it also revealed an ambivalent attitude to technology—with a popular response being that technology hadn’t made life easier.

Meanwhile, Australia leads the Asia Pacific region in per capital Internet use, and the Australian school system’s penetration of “near universal Internet access” was “the envy of other countries” Matathia said.

17 July 2001

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