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July 21, 2004
How Do You Say "Glocalization" in Mandarin?
Globalisation is here to stay: As we say in New York, "Tell me something I don't know."
The question of interest is who's doing it well and who's doing it poorly, and what lessons can be drawn? Asian Legal Business did a nice "35,000-foot" survey last April (I should have picked this up sooner) that admirably ventures beyond bromides and generalizations to make some points that sound trenchant and just plain right:
- For UK- and US-based firms to succeed in Asia, they must be "glocal"—combing global reach and throw-weight with an intensely local knowledge of the market.
- The article takes a nice swipe at an Economist survey of global law firms from last February that essentially posited that UK firms' profitability suffered from excessive numbers of and concentration on foreign offices, whereas US firms' more conservative extra-territorial approach and domestic concentration boosted profitability. Guess what? UK firms have little realistic choice; compared to US firms, they have no sizable domestic marketplace to rely upon, and growth perforce means looking abroad.
- The longer firms have beachheads in Asia, the more their partner and associate ranks are populated by locals.
The article almost slides into cliche at the end when it remarks that global expertise is communicated and shared more rapidly today than ever before, and, accordingly, that the quality of representation available in (say) Singapore is ascending steeply: But this commonplace also has the characteristic of being true, and is a phenomenon a myriad of other industries have already experienced. (The article does not say this, but I do: It is a theme of this blog, that the economics of legal practice is not presumptively different than the economics of other sophisticated professional service firms, or other service firms, or other sectors of the economy at large.)
I commend the article to anyone with a material international presence, and especially to firms in or looking at Asia.
But I have bad news for Yanks and Brits allergic to foreign languages: You better give serious thought to learning Mandarin; it's not yet table stakes, but outside of Hong Kong, it would be very handy.
Posted by Bruce at July 21, 2004 5:15 PM | TrackBackPosted to Globalization Printer-friendly version
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