I want to make everyone aware of an upcoming radio show with one of the most interesting business authors I have spoken with in a while. His name is James Hemerling and his book is called GLOBALITY: Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything. Hemerling states that the old global business model (centralized, top-down, process-driven, with influence running from West to East) will recede, perhaps vanish. It is inadequate for a world in which every global company will be forced to compete: in every market, with everyone, from everywhere, all the time, for resources and market share. Unlike developed-market leaders, emerging-market challengers have evolved new management and governance structures that are ideally suited to this new competitive landscape. And it has enabled them to undercut, outthink, outwork, out-innovate, and generally outfox some of the biggest, most powerful names in global industry. What are these upstart challengers doing? And how are they winning?

Imagine companies that:
-Innovate at the rate of one new product development every 12 hours.
-Give up the notion of "headquarters" in a drive toward global expansion.
-Do away with titles and committees in an effort to improve staff development.
-Expand into 50 countries by satisfying global demand that no one else could see - at the lowest, cheapest end of the market.
-Hire thousands of people to staff assembly lines, instead of automating, to be more efficient, flexible, and profitable.
-Achieve such high efficiency that they can give away 60% of their services and still make a profit.
-Retrain workers by the tens of thousands to build a world-class capability, in less than a decade.

Listen to my interview with Hemerling at 4pm Pacific on July 11, 2008.

Labels: global business, innovation