Different companies, similarly to people, have their own unique culture that is founded on ethnic, regional, temporal and industry-relevant factors. Therefore, when two or more businesses work together or decide to merge, these specific attributes may clash, leading to conflicts and worsened performance outcomes. The process of acquisition has to be planned in detail from the first contact between the companies to their full integration. In most successful cases, firms prepare thoroughly to enter the new relationship by mapping out the process of the merger and trying to predict the potential issues. However, the importance of the steps following the official merger may be overlooked by managers who fail to account for the fundamental cultural and structural differences between the businesses. In foreign mergers, this lack of attention to the whole strategy may be detrimental to the outcome of the project. This problem is especially evident for cultures that have Continue reading
International Business Strategies
Case Study: Success Story of Exxon Mobil
Exxon Mobil Corporation (Exxon Mobil) is an integrated oil and gas company based in the US. It is engaged in exploration and production, refining, and marketing of oil and natural gas. The company is also engaged in the production of chemicals, commodity petrochemicals, and electricity generation. The company operates across the globe. It is headquartered in Irving, Texas and employs about 80,000 people. Exxon Mobil operates through three segments: upstream, downstream, and chemicals. The upstream segment explores for and produces crude oil and natural gas. The company’s upstream business has operations in 36 countries and includes five global companies. These companies are responsible for the corporation’s exploration, development, production, gas and power marketing, and upstream-research activities. The company’s upstream portfolio includes operations in the US, Canada, South America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, Australia, the Middle East, Russia, the Caspian, and Africa. The company’s downstream activities include refining, supply, and fuels marketing. Continue reading
Analysis of Porter’s Diamond Model of National Advantage
Michael Porter introduced the diamond model of national competitive advantage (1990) to explain why a number of countries are more competitive than others and why a number of businesses within the countries are more competitive. Porter’s Diamond Model proposes that the national home base of an industry plays an important role in achieving an advantage on a universal scale. This home base contributes the essential factors that will support the organisations in building advantages in global competition. Porter identified four determinants in attaining a national competitive advantage he concludes that a combination of the four determinants within a nation has an enormous influence on the competitive strength of the firms located there. Porter argues that competitive industries take the form of specialized clusters of home based firms. Clusters are correlated through vertical relations such as buyers integrating with suppliers or through horizontal relations through customers, technology, skills, distribution channels etc. Continue reading
Case Study: Citibank’s Indian Business Model
Citigroup opened its first office in India in Kolkata (Calcutta) in 1902. With capital nearing US$ 1 billion it is the single largest foreign direct investor in the financial services industry in India. It has become one of India’s most diverse and recognized financial service providers operating through 40 branches of Citibank N.A. across 20 cities and through various finance companies operating directly/indirectly out of locations across the country. Citigroup India offers a complete range of corporate and investment banking services under the “Citigroup” brand name, consumer banking products and services under the “Citibank” banner and consumer finance under the “CitiFinancial” banner. Citigroup has a customer base of over 900 large corporate, over 22,000 small and medium enterprises and over 3,500,000 retail customers. The global corporate and investment banking group provides a range of financial services including treasury management, transaction services including cash management and trade services, securities custodianship, foreign Continue reading
Competitive Advantages of International Business
Competition has always been central to the agenda of firms. It has become one of the enduring themes of our times and the rising intensity of competition has continued until this day thereby spreading to more and more countries. As a result of globalization, most industries with the topics of international business and competitive advantage have received much attention from business executives, public policy makers and scholars in recent years. This; in conjunction with the rise of global competitors has helped to explain why a country’s competitive advantage can be determined by the strength of its business firms. This has resulted in numerous rankings, where industries and firms are compared on a global scale to see which are the most competitive. Most firms prefer to compete in the business environment so that it will help determine the competitive advantage of the country in which they operate. A firm’s ability to Continue reading
International Negotiations – Theory and Examples
Negotiations are an integral part of every person’s life, and they are considered in several areas of applied research. For instance, management technologies, communication practices, and conflict studies of social and international relations are crucial for this process. In professional terms, negotiations previously constituted a significant part of the activities of a narrow circle of politicians and diplomats. Now, as the world becomes more open and interdependent, the negotiation process has become an integral attribute of the life of a more significant number of individuals and organizations. There are always differences between the interests of the parties and the resulting conflict between opposing positions. In this regard, the problem of training professional personnel with negotiation skills is of great importance. The term negotiation is most often understood as communication between the parties to reach an agreement. Negotiations are also defined as the relationship between people, designed to reach an agreement Continue reading