- Levitt, the globalization of markets
Well-managed companies have moved their focus to offering globally standardized products that are
advanced, functional, reliable and low priced. Technology is the force that made converging
commonality and standardization possible. Corporations got to benefit from economies of scale in
production, distribution, marketing and management so that they could worldwide decrease prices.
The multinational corporation:
1. Operations in a number of countries
2. Adjusts its products and practices in each country (at relatively high costs)
3. Knows a lot about a great many countries and congenially adapts to supposed differences
The global corporation:
1. Operates as if the entire world is a single entity
2. Sells the same products in the same way all over the world
3. Knows everything about one great thing
The world’s needs and desires have been irrevocably homogenized. This makes the multinational
corporation obsolete and the global corporation absolute. The commonality of preference leads to
standardization of products, manufacturing, and the institutions of trade and commerce.
The most effective competitors compete on the basis of appropriate value – the best combinations of
price, quality, reliability, and delivery for products that are globally identical with respect to design,
function and even fashion.
Ancient differences in national tastes or modes of doing business disappear. The commonality of
preference leads inescapably to the standardization of products, manufacturing, and the institutions of
trade and commerce. Small nation-based markets transmogrify and expand. Success in world
competition turns on efficiency in production, distribution, marketing, and management, and inevitably
becomes focused on price. The most effective world competitors compete on the basis of appropriate
value- the best combinations of price, quality, reliability, and delivery for products that are globally
identical with respect to design, function and even fashion. High quality and low costs are compatible,
twin identities of superior practice.
Vindication of the model T
If a company forces costs and prices down and pushes quality and reliability up – while maintaining
reasonable concern for suitability – customers will prefer its world-standardized products.
Although companies customize products for particular market segments, they know that success in a
world with homogenized demand requires a search for sales opportunities in similar segments across
the globe in order to achieve the economies of scale necessary to compete. Such a search works
because a market segment in one country is seldom unique; it has close cousins everywhere precisely
because technology has homogenized the globe.
The global corporation knows that all nations and people have one thing in common: scarcity. Everyone
in the increasingly homogenized world market wants products and features that everybody else wants.
If the price is low enough, they will take highly standardized world products, even if these aren't exactly