To Be a Global Enterprise


Any domestic company that has a solid operational base in the country looks overseas for the expansion of its business, as further growth at home is limited due to the size of the market.
The company exports its products first and then builds and operates its plant in the foreign country that imports its products. It dispatches expatriates to manage the plant and those expats become the center of its overseas operation as they also focus on marketing the products made at the plant. This is the general picture of a Korean company operating in a foreign country. Sorry to say. But not many Korean companies have been successful with this approach, although they have the technology and capability. In general, they make mistakes in understanding the market and have a lot of trouble adjusting to local business conditions and norms. A key cause of the failures has been personnel. Many business leaders say they have not been able to recruit qualified personnel for their global operations in many areas.
When they say global experts, they usually mean people fluent in foreign languages with some degree of overseas experience.
But it is about time to change such a view. They are nothing but necessary qualifications, yet far from satisfactory conditions. We have to set up a new concept of what "global talent and capability"means in order for our companies to be global players in the true meaning of the word.
Korean companies should have clear targets for what they want from their overseas operations as well as strategies to go about achieving them in order to be winners. Manpower should be hired and trained based on the strategies.
Therefore, global talent should be defined as those personnel who have won recognition for their talent in global markets and who can lead the company through the competition to maximize results.
They ought to have professional knowledge to compete globally, always have their thoughts and actions open so that they might be able to cope with the global business environment and set the direction and targets actively through their experiences. They have to be capable of coping rapidly with the local culture to the extent of their language ability, along with an insight into international affairs. Such a global mindset is the most important requirement for a global talent.
Another understanding that should be changed is the idea that personnel from the domestic side should always be selected for global operations.
Local personnel hired by a Korean company for the management of its overseas plants and marketing of its products based on its business objectives and strategies deserve to be trained to be leaders in managing the company's operations overseas.
Insisting on deploying only home office officials and staff would only do away with growth opportunities, as a truly global operation starts with fair and strategic dimensions and is not based on pre-conceptions of a country nor of personnel.
Many Korean companies have short histories in overseas operations and therefore have problems in training local employees in the foreign countries in which they operate. They should hire local employees and train them after correctly scrutinizing local markets and their needs, as those local employees can easily form contact networks in their native countries among the many other advantages they have over expatriates. Recruiting local employees is a must from a long-term perspective.
Motorola is considered one of the foreign companies that has had huge success doing business in China. The multi-national company hired some 70 percent of its top managers locally to run its subsidiary in China and has trained them continuously according to the company's strategies to make its operation a huge success.
Globalization of business operations is expected to make greater progress in the future than now. Companies that focus their training for overseas operations on a select number of home-office officials and staff to be "global talent"should stop that practice, as those companies can never be global players by depending on a limited number of officers and staff for their global operations.
To be a truly global player, a company should have its entire management and staff jointly share values on management philosophies, technology and product quality, to name just a few, and their level of understanding on these values should be about the same to give their company a competitive edge.
It is impossible to train all employees to the same global level. So I would like to stress a company should train the leaders who can uphold the company's values and they would in return give training to their juniors in the company in what could be termed a "creation of leaders through leaders."People have been in the center of every change that has taken place in the world, including the development of new technology and economic growth. Humans have always been the most important element in corporate growth and changes and all the businesses in the world compete against each other, seeing the world as their market.
To be a global player in his own field, one has to define a global player and nurture him or her. The role of a CEO is to build the system and give positive support for the system. nw

Vice Chmn. & CEO
Koo Cha-yol
LS Cable Co.