IIMA-Strategies for Future

N Mathur Ajeet

Description

Have you wondered why international business seems magically simple in text books but inescapably complex in reality? With international business pushing horizons, cross border activity is rampant and national boundaries are getting blurred. Economies have opened their doors and globalization is the watchword of the hour. Strategies for the Future explores the opportunities of a mingling world with remarkably discerning anecdotes and hands you the tools to master international trade. Professor Ajeet N. Mathur helps you formulate assumptions and make decisions under uncertainty in response to differences in business environments, national competitiveness, and regional and global strategies of other business players. As part of a competitive global village, this book is indispensable for any manager or entrepreneur bounding forward in the promising world of international business.

Sujets

• Gestion et management
• Entrepreneurship
• International business
• Strategic management
• Economics

Informations

• Publié par: Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184003673
• Langue: English

Extrait

AJEET N. MATHUR

IIM Ahmedabad Business Books Strategies for the Future Understanding International Business
RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
Contents
Introduction
1. It Pays to be in International Business
2. Opportunities in the World Business Environment
3. Doing Business Abroad
4. Making Cross-border Value Chains
5. Managing Cultural Diversity in International Business
6. Preparing for Institutional Diversity
7. Risks in International Business
8. Sources of Business Intelligence
9. Future Challenges in International Business
After the End
A Note on the Author
A Note on the IIMA Business Books
Other Books in this Series
Acknowledgements
Follow Random House
Copyright
Dear Reader,
The book you are holding is one in the series of IIMA Business Books published in collaboration with Random House to disseminate knowledge to executives in a manner that brings them up to date in different fields of management. The first set of books in the series published in 2010 and 2011 were liked immensely by the readers. Several of the books went on to become best-sellers. The set is being expanded further in 2012 with publication of books on new topics. The idea is to publish books on a comprehensive list of topics in management over time for practising managers. These books are written by authors who have rich experience of teaching executives from a diverse set of organizations. Written in a conversational style with numerous illustrations from the world of practice, you would find the books useful in your work life. The references cited in the books provide you with ready information on where to look for more detailed knowledge on specific topics and concepts.
Our daily experience informs us that we are inexorably moving towards much greater integration with the rest of the world through international travel, sharing of ideas via the internet, and cross-border exchange of goods and services. Courses on International Business that used to be optional two decades ago have now become a part of the core curriculum in management education. The book Strategies for the Future lucidly explains the nuances of doing business in multiple cultures, multiple markets, and multiple currencies. Written in a polemical linguistic style, the book provides readers a panoramic and yet detailed perspective on international business. The logic and frameworks for businesses to become international are explained with the consummate skills of a master. The book is a mustread for all managers. It would add the much-needed international perspective and knowledge to the repertoire of understanding needed by managers of today. I am certain that you will enjoy reading the book while unravelling the logic of globalization of our neighbourhood.
Write to us suggesting topics that you would like covered in the books that are to be published under the series in the future.
Samir K. Barua
Director
IIM Ahmedabad
INTRODUCTION
Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission.
A RNOLD B ENNETT
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The surge in cross-border connectivity involving people, organizations and countries opens up new horizons every day. This naturally kindles fresh aspirations among professionals, managers, and entrepreneurs who regard the world as their oyster for seeking opportunities to participate in, and benefit from, international business. Some of you may already be doing so and may want to expand your business; others may be taking, or envisioning, first steps. International business can be thought of as a magnet that lures many but one which, by posing formidable challenges, also quickly rebuffs the unprepared.
There is a rich body of experience to learn from, but, it is thinly documented. Concepts and practices constantly challenge each other in international business, making it difficult to bring relevant and significant insights to the attention of practising professionals in a timely manner. People learn mainly from their own experiences-often by burning their fingers, leading them to burn their bridges or their boats. Occasionally, there is also learning to be acquired from anecdotal tales of colleagues who are engaged in their own or others firms, but rarely is there any distilled analysis of the true encounters of a significant number of others, who took similar paths; of why they failed or how they-successfully made their way around.
This book addresses that gap. It is not written to marshal data or arguments in support of or against contestable hypotheses of my academic collegiate community. There are numerous other forums and platforms to do that. Nor is this book meant for those who believe that international business is merely about networking and luck. This is not going to add to your know-who network of business connections nor will it serve to demystify the future any better than would a crystal ball. People like you and me and millions of others, driven by our motivations and passions, mustering courage and support from powerbases, are actually shaping that future. This book will not serve the purpose of those who regard state actors as being almost omnipotent or who believe that lobbying for preferential incentives is the main route to international business. If you are in search of a bag of tricks to extend a domestic business abroad, if you are seeking a quick fix to treat irritants previously encountered in international business without diagnosing them, or if you are expecting to make winning deals with potential foreign partners by outsmarting them with magic wands-this book is not for you. Please put it back and continue your quest. I wish you luck. I would suggest muses, like Jonathan Swift s Gulliver s Travels; Lewis Carroll s Alice in Wonderland; The Adventures of Marco Polo; the poetry of Milton and Blake, or Jaishankar Prasad s stories, such as, Puraskar; the Finnish epic Kalevala where the quest for retrieving a magical money-making machine, the Sampo involves Kullervo s adventures and V in m inen s sagely wisdom or Kalidas s ode to the Himalayas in Meghdoot -all of which I myself enjoy reading.
However, if you want a book shorn of jargon, one which will help you consider and evaluate potential international business opportunities by connecting cross-border nodes of value (what we may call value chains ) or designing and structuring value grids and constellations (patterns), developing ways of engaging decisively and confidently in international business, and embracing the present with an eye on the future, I warmly welcome you. If you believe that chance favours the prepared mind; if international business excites you; if the cutting edge of practice within the scope of your own decision-making interests you; or if you are curious about concepts and cases and the know-why and the know-how which we pack into our international business courses at IIMA, read on.
SCOPE OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
As an introduction to this book, let me first outline the scope of the subject and its underbelly to provide you a sense of the chapters that follow. International business is any business that spans beyond a country s boundaries for creating value from the flow of products, services, capital, ideas, or people. International business can take many forms; its scope is not limited to government trade or official transactions between countries. Considerable cross-border procurement, the marketing of goods and services, the organization of international value chains for bridging and linking resources and responses, and various stakeholding contracts supporting them occur on private entrepreneurial and managerial initiative. But what enables, sustains, and propels this phenomenon?
To put it simply, the world is characterized by a great diversity in the choice of lifestyles, a variety in natural resource endowments, differential competitive advantages, and plurality of pictures-in-the-mind over what is feasible to make, use, store, or exchange. On the darker side, there are also smuggling rackets, cheating on border levies, organized international crime syndicates, human trafficking, and contraband cross-border trade of goods, such as, weapons, illicit drug deals and counterfeit products. In services, there are mercenaries of various descriptions, soldiers of fortune, illegal immigrants; and numerous other organized forms of brokerage and contracting persist, in which players in illegal international activities and law enforcement authorities try to outsmart each other. The illegitimate underworld is not something we focus on, but we must not lose sight of it. Gold smuggling and havala trade by the so-called bhailog allegedly financed the growth of Bollywood for a long time until the government eventually acknowledged filmmaking as an industry eligible for financing and credit from the banking system and industrial finance institutions in 2002.
One of the well-kept secrets of international business is that several theories about it which are in wide circulation have never been empirically confirmed. In fact, many theories have actually been refuted but they continue to be peddled and circulated. This includes some notable ones with intuitive appeal; for instance, the various versions of comparative advantage theories (the Ricardian theory, the Heckscher-Ohlin model) which justify specialization in trade have contributed to the impoverishment of many African nations. Ghana invested in growing more of its large, delicious juicy pineapples, based on what was identified as their comparative advantage, for exporting to Europe. The efforts were in vain because Southern European producers lobbied in the European Union for a maximal size for pineapples that could be imported into the European Community. Quaint Porterian notions about positioning are contradicted by the success of retail chains, like Sainsbury (Cronshaw 1994), and manufacturers, like Toyota who, according