Mary Yoko Brannen PhD
- Born and raised in Japan, with advanced studies in the U.S., France and Spain, Mary Yoko Brannen has worked as a cross-cultural consultant for over 25 years to mostly Fortune 100 companies.
- Specializes in helping multinational firms realize their global strategic initiatives by aligning and integrating critical internal organizational resources. Advises management on developing knowledge-sharing architectures, creating a global language strategy, leveraging bicultural boundary-spanners, and careful selection and deployment of global teams.
- Holds the Jarislowsky East Asia (Japan) Chair of Cross-Cultural Management at the University of Victoria Gustavson School of Business and holds a Visiting Professorship of Strategy and Management at INSEAD. She is a founding director of the Institute for Global Learning and Innovation.
- Serves as Deputy Editor of the Journal of International Business Studies – the highest ranked journal in the field of international business.
- As a researcher, internationally recognized as an expert in ethnomethodology and qualitative studies of complex cultural organizational phenomena. Current research includes knowledge-sharing across distance and differentiated contexts; also, directing a global research project focusing on biculturals and people of mixed cultural origins as the new workplace demographic.
- All 6 Best Practices
- Pre-Meeting Discovery Process
- One-on-One Call with Expert
- Meeting Summary Report
- Post-Meeting Engagement
Global Strategic Audits - Making the Most of Your Global Footprint
Overview
In today's global business environment, companies are in constant search of growth opportunities.
A local or national business may have intentions to remain in its home market, believing it will be more manageable. However, thanks to globalization, as well as the Internet and social media, many local brands have been lured to expand beyond their borders. For other businesses, expanding outside of their home country is a must if the market is no longer large enough to support their vision and goals.
Whether the expansion is a requirement or happenstance, growth into other countries needs to be strategic to be successful.
For instance, some companies risk losing their brand or corporate identity when expanding their global footprint, especially into markets where the consumer culture is different. Language barriers can be a problem. Hiring and retaining good talent is also important when setting up shop in another country.
Just as there are different types of companies and markets, there are different types of growth.
- How can companies make sure they're making the most of their expanding global footprint?
- How can they ensure that their growth helps to enhance and not dilute their brand?
Traditionally, companies have internationalized for two main reasons – for market growth or to seek resources. The global competitive landscape has changed to where now, more companies are internationalizing for knowledge appropriation – not only to acquire market knowledge, but also to learn from best practices dispersed throughout the world, then use these insights as a source of ongoing strategic renewal.
Global strategic audits are a valuable tool for corporations of all sizes, helping to identify and leverage untapped sources of knowledge and internal resources. A comprehensive audit includes assessing advantages that the company may have overlooked in order to build a knowledge-sharing architecture as an engine for sustainable competitive advantage. Those advantages might be:
- Geographic,
- Technological,
- Or, human resource-related.
Global strategic audits will uncover whether or not the company has a functioning and dynamic knowledge-sharing architecture. They can expose lost opportunities. And they can help companies sense, meld and redeploy valuable market, technological, and practical knowledge resulting from an operating presence that is global and at the same time deeply entrenched in local contexts. The global firm can thus learn and reinvigorate itself utilizing the full promise and knowledge appropriation strength of its global footprint.
Audits can further help companies discover:
- How well they are working with subsidiaries.
- How to maximize global team resources.
- How well they have assessed and are deploying their global human resources.
Expanding into global markets is often done in a short-term gain approach to market expansion, leaving the firm with a global footprint but without a knowledge-sharing system in place enabling the full benefit of this investment to be realized. It's important to develop a strategy to capitalize on the full promise of having a global presence. A global strategic audit helps make this happen.