What Does It Mean to Be Truly Global?

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Having just given a presentation for the Women Presidents' Organization last week at McDonald's Hamburger University in Oakbrook, Illinois on "What It Means To Be Global," I was quite pleased to discover this newly published work featured below by one of my favorite authors:  C.K. Prahalad (may he rest in peace).

Background:

August 8 was C.K. Prahalad’s 70th birthday. To commemorate Prahalad’s work, strategy+business is pleased to publish an article that was in progress at the time of his death in April 2010. In it, he and his coauthor, Hrishi Bhattacharyya, explain why multinational business models are no longer relevant, and how skillful companies can integrate three strategies — customization, competencies, and arbitrage — into a better form of organization.

How to Be a Truly Global Company
by C. K. Prahalad and Hrishi Bhattacharyya

Snippet:

The problem is not globalization, but the way our current institutions are set up to respond to this new demand. The prevailing corporate operating model does not work well with the structural changes that have taken place in the global economy.

Definitely worth a read - several times over.

Past blog posts on CK:

• Revolutionizing How You Do Business in Developing Countries (9/1/09)
• The Magnificent Seven: Global Business Books in 2008 Worth a Read (1/7/09)
• Business As An Agent of World Benefit (9/15/06)
• The Innovation Sandbox (9/7/06)

Posted by:  The Global Small Business Blog

Revolutionizing How You Do Business in Developing Countries

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An idea can change the world ...
~ from "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid"

C.K. Prahalad, the business world's great global influencer and co-author of another one of my all-time favorite business books, "Competing For the Future," also wrote global bestseller business book, "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits."

"The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" has been talked about everywhere for its portrayal of a revolutionary way to do business in developing countries: Build a profitable business while fighting poverty and reducing human misery.

The reason I am bringing this book to your attention now -- five years after the fact -- is because it has been revised and updated for a special 5th anniversary edition by Wharton School Publishing.

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid offers a blueprint for driving the radical innovation you'll need to profit in emerging markets--and using those innovations to become more competitive everywhere. This new paperback edition includes eleven concise, fast-paced success stories from India, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela--ranging from salt to soap, banking to cellphones, healthcare to housing.

Simply put, this book is about making a revolution: building profitable "bottom of the pyramid" markets, reducing poverty, and creating an inclusive capitalism that works for everyone.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to capture the world's fastest growing market -- the bottom of the pyramid -- where billions of poor people have enormous untapped buying power.

Buy the e-book version immediately here, check out Wharton School Publishing here or pre-order (available October, 2009) the hard copy edition here.

Read a sample: The Market at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Read online now: Safari Books Online

More about Prahalad:

CK Prahalad is Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor of Strategy at the Ross School of Business, The University of Michigan. He is a globally recognized management thinker. Times of London and Suntop Media elected him as the most influential management thinker alive today in 2007. He is coauthor of bestsellers in Management such as Competing for the Future, The Future of Competition and The New Age of Innovation. He has won the McKinsey Prize for the best article four times. He has received several honorary doctorates including one from the University of London and the Stevens School of Technology. He has worked with CEOs and senior management at many of the world’s top companies. He is also member of the Board of NCR corporation, Pearson plc., Hindustan Unilever ltd., World Resources Institute, and the Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).

Books by C.K. Prahalad