innovation playground Idris Mootee

Global Ignite Week Kicked Off With Such Cool Energy. My Personal Best Is AfriGadget - A Grassroots Reporting Project On African Ingenuity.

The Global Ignite Week Toronto was such a stellar night last night and it was a pleasure to share the stage with so many cool people. Funny so many people asked me if I have practiced presenting given the format limitations, there was no practice for me. I think I've never done an Power Point practice for more than 15 years. I hardly gone through my slides once these days and typos is a problem for me. I guess I have always been a fast speaker. The people attending were all very cool from media to design and start-ups. The organizer Peter Horvath and Michele Perras did an amazing job. Good energy and I certainly recommend people to try the experience if you have not done so. There are so much creative energy in the place and everyone is eager to learn and share. And here are many IC folks there and many old friends exBlastees too.

The most interesting presentation for me personally is Steve Mugiri’s AfriGadget. He is a writer for a team blog AfriGadget that is about appropriate and ingenious application of tech in Africa. It is amazing how people use their imagination to create things with so little resources. Seeing people there bending the little they have to their will, using creativity to overcome life’s challenges. We have seen enough the unfortunate side of Africa that is full of conflicts and sufferings. AfriGadget's objective is to find more stories of African ingenuity. The Grassroots Reporting Project is their plan to find, equip and train more AfriGadget reporters in the field throughout Africa. This is the CNN on Innovation in Africa!

Every time I think about challenges in Africa, I always think educational attainment, probably the important element in reducing poverty, has made some progress, especially at the primary level. But fewer than 75% of primary school-age children were enrolled in primary school in Chad, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and several other African countries. African countries have made little progress getting children to advance to secondary school. For all of sub-Saharan Africa, the average net enrollment for secondary school is just 28%. We need to find more effective ways to deliver education. We cannot afford the continuous widening of the gap.

One cool example Steve included in his presentation was Alfred Sirleaf, he is a blogger but like the blogger in this part of the world. There is no computer or Internet access. Guess what, Alfred is an analog blogger. He runs the "Daily News," a news hut in the middle of Monrovia, the capital of a Liberia, a country on the west coast of Africa. The lack of electricity or Internet connections doesn’t even faze him.

The lessons for us is we often resort to modern tools or solutions when we are dealing with a particular problem. The best example is we rely too much on pharmaceuticals, whatever the problem is; we’re too quick to reach for a pharmaceutical solutions. Same with technologies for enterprise usage, buy a big software package and your problems will be solved. Alfred serves, as a reminder to the rest of us, that simple is often better, just because it works. How does it work? He has no funding, no Typepad, no Facebook and no computer or electricity. It is all about the ideas. The power of imagination and creativity at work.

He is a good recruiter, he uses creative ways to recruit people from around the city and country to report news to him. He uses his cell phone as the major point of connection between him and the 10,000 that read his blackboard daily. I think soon, he will be selling Google ads on his blog. Great site to check out. There are so many good stories. Another good one from the blog is the hacking culture in Africa. I think we do it for fun and they do it for necessity.

One post from Erik Hersman talked about the FLAP bag project, a collaborative effort by Timbuk2, Portable Light and Pop!Tech. Those folks ar AfriGadget are helping to field-test the bags that they designed have solar power and lighting on them, and get interviews of the individuals using them. Then they asked them if they could make something from their own materials, with their own designs, from it. Three days later they returned with some new designs. The local cloth use in Ghana was pretty and I think they can sell well at Best Buy.

Are Business Schools Preparing Students For A Flat World Where Organizations And National Boundaries Are Becoming Blurred.

Looking at this year MBA rankings by Financial Times, there aren’t many changes in the Top 10 list. Top ten remains the Top 10. The surprise is ranking No. 10 is a Hong Kong Business School and No. 12 is an Indian Business School. Other top schools (some are more local) ranking: IMD (Swiss) ranks 15, HEC (French) ranks 18, CEIBS (Chinese) ranks 22, Haas ranks 28, Cornell ranks 38, Ivey (Canadian) ranks 49. Here's the latest FT Global Top 10 MBA Rankings for 2010:

1. London Business School
2. University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
3. Harvard Business School
4. Stanford University GSB
5. Insead
6. Columbia Business School
7. IE Business School
8. MIT: Sloan School of Management
9. University of Chicago: Booth
10. Hong Kong UST Business School

There are a lot of criticisms around MBA programs on different fronts. I was advising some folks that this is still the best all round business education. The last three months, I have written 4 recommendations for some folks, one was accepted by London Business School, one Stanford Business School and one Chicago Graduate School of Business and one MIT Sloan. I am happy for all of them. I still think it is one of best paths to change the world.

There are arguments around whether it needs to be two years and almost all European MBAs are one year with only exception of LBS. The traditional two-year MBA curriculum, grounded in the core functional disciplines — strategy, marketing, organizational behavior, accounting, finance etc. — has been in existence since it was first pioneered in the US in the late 50s. MBAs were very much an American thing. US companies placed more value in an MBA than European companies. In the UK, a general management program combined with solid work experience is generally accepted to be sufficient.

The world of business is on the verge of transformation, a transformation, and so should business education. Where technological advance, geo-political forces, rapid globalization are all putting pressure on the business education system. I attended an event a while back at the Yale School of Management; there were 20 education institutions from around the world all struggling with the relevance of the MBA to 21st century organizations. Everyone sees the need for transformation but not many knows what and how to transform. Asking any B-school's Dean the question how their business schools must change to better prepare our students for the challenges that they will face in a hyper competitive and uncertain world is a good start.

Yes the world is flat. Organizations are becoming increasingly flat, and social technologies are blurring the boundaries of a corporation. Leaders of modern enterprises competing in the global economy need to look for truly global managers who are capable of leading and managing across the boundaries of function, geography, and organizations and industries. Are business schools ready for this? Or should we change the old paradigm that an MBA is an elitist qualification which can enable the holder of the degree to fast-track his/her career to power and fortune? An MBA should mean less as a qualification. It is a sense of empowerment and commitment for an individual to take on big challenges, transform oneself and create win/win strategy for shareholder, employees and societies?

Should We Revive Dying Brands And Companies? Or We’re Better Off Creating New Ones? Does "The Circle Of Life" Apply Here?

We make assumptions that it is the management team responsibility to extend or prolong the life of any companies even they have fewer reasons to exist. Management is different from practicing medicine, although sometimes I cam called the strategy doctor. Instead of wasting resources and energy to save a company or a brand, should we just take whatever assets and redeploy them In life, the cycle of life is the natural order of things.

Although we do live longer now but death is inevitable. Technology is the same. Should corporations be the same? Saab is at the end of life and should it deserve a second life? Apple had its near death experiences and came back stronger. Many argued at that time Apple should be sold to Sony. Wang Computers thought they were beating IBM and become the next IBM. IBM was also that close to being disappeared from the scene just 15 years ago.

Management consultants usually have a keen preference in prolonging corporate life, I guess that keep them spending. The pharma companies don’t want patients to die, just stay sick. Why do we care about extending the life of large companies or big brands? Is it because they’re can afford your fees? Or we have a love for them. Yes, build to last. Business schools love transformation stories because they make great business cases, portray CEOs as heroes. For many large companies, transformation and renewal is only source of survival.

The world of fashion has a lot of come back-stories although they are generally not sophisticated from a management capability perspectives compare to the GEs of the world. Think how Burberry, Addidas, Dior, Abercrombie & Fitch all have found prosperity in their new life. Many business school case studies have been written about of how brands were “brought back from the graveyard.” Unfortunately, however, the lessons are often so idiosyncratic. There 100X more cases where companies tried revitalizing old brands, hiring new CMOs and advertising agencies and throwing big money in advertising hoping to rebuild a great brand even when if there wasn't a relevant product or service or a sound business model behind the it.

For those fashion companies, it is about hiring the right designer (call Tom Ford or Marc Jacob) and for other businesses, whom do you call? The designer often viewed as the critical component to reengineering a brand, and total attention must be paid to the brand in an effort to return to its essence and reason for being successful in the first place. It used to be case that you can recruit a top CMO and things will work out. This is not working anymore. You need a master strategist, a great storyteller and a change agent, all in one person (call Indra Nooyi or Steve Jobs). In fashion, you go back to the essence of the brand. In other business what do you do? How do you rediscover your core or find a new core?

Successful transformation and re-Invention rests on two major premises: first, that our time is characterized by a rare confluence of new behavior and economic disruption, and second, that the "new global reality" is turning toward a "whole new emphasis on innovation" . I was speaking to a group of graduating Ivey MBAs on global strategy. You can check them out at slideshare on the bottom right. This is another post next week.

Warren Buffet Is Betting His Farm Investing In A 190 Years Old Innovation Platform.

I love trains. I remember how happy I was when my Dad bought me the first expensive German made Minitrix train set (I was about 8). I was fascinated for months by different freight and passenger trains and had the catalog under the pillow going bed every night dreaming about them. Whenever I see trains, I think about him even sadly he is not around anymore. It is funny how toys can have so much sentimental value.

Anyone know when the railroad was invented? It depends on how you look at it. The invention of the steam engine was critical to the invention of the modern railroad and trains. In 1803, a man named Samuel Homfray decided to fund the development of a steam-powered vehicle to replace the horse-drawn carts on the tramways (it is a performance-driven innovation).

Richard Trevithick (1771-1833) built that vehicle, the first steam engine tramway locomotive. On February 22, 1804, the locomotive hauled a load of 10 tons of iron, 70 men and five extra wagons the 9 miles between the ironworks at Pen-y-Darron in the town of Merthyr Tydfil (Wales) to the bottom of the valley called Abercynnon. It was a two hours trip and was a slow train. Then in 1821, an Englishman Julius Griffiths first patented a passenger road locomotive – another great British innovation!

Almost 20 decades later Warren Buffett sees the same opportunity and decided to invest heavily in railroad; he is paying US$44 billion for a 19th century innovation the railroad that moves things from one place to another. (I don’t want to bet against him, given his track record, Its stock is up 84% over the past decade, while the S&P 500 is down by 18%). He is smart. Doesn't matter what innovation coming next, people still need to move goods around in the most energy (and cost) efficient means. At least before some one crack teleporting.

Why the railroad? It is not because of nostalgic reason that the train was one of his favorite childhood toys. I am sure that’s not the reason. It is not toy money. "It's an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States. I love these bets," said Beffet "Railroads are among the most energy-efficient modes of mass transportation to date. And also due for a major upgrade". What is Mr. Buffet betting on? He is betting on three things:

1. Oil pries will remain high. If oil prices regain its upward momentum, trains will be more productive then trucks in that environment when oil is king, rail is queen. His money can fuel a massive upgrade of the railroad with the most advanced innovative technologies.
2. US economy will recover and that demand will resumes for transportation. According to Buffet: I basically believe this country will prosper and more people will be moving more goods 10, 20, 30 years from now and the rails will benefit."
3. China economic progress will continue at a fast pace. Commodities fuel such as coal powers the  economic engine of China (the factory to the world). US coal and goods are shipped via rail to Pacific ports and then shipped to China. Buffet believes China will further integrate with the US economy.

Random Thoughts: From Aviva Community Fund To Positive Social Change To Women Empowerment.

I was so excited that our Aviva Community Program is getting such good response even before the official launch. It is a very important project for both our client and IC because it is something we truly believe in. It is about 1/ Empowering change in our communities while building brand 2/ Prove that social media is not a hype and if you use it right it is the most powerful communication medium 3/ Authenticity is the key ingredient of marketing, this program is about action and not just words. Check out the program here It is truly where "Marketing Innovation" meets "Social Innovation".

The idea is Aviva Canada will be introducing a nation-wide pilot positive social change competition supported by see a large-scale $500,000 donation put towards the fulfillment of positive community changes in neighborhoods across Canada. So far our metrics are indicating that this will be a super hit for an insurance company successfully social media to drive awareness and action for positive social change and brand awareness. Quick stats to date (before official launch): Ideas created: 800+ (see map below), Registered Users: 60,000+ Site Votes: 160,000+ Comments: 6,400+ Not to mention the crazy Facebook links.  Kudos to the client and the IC team John, Paul, Caroline, Jeff, Jackie, Claire, Cheesan, Andrew, Patrick, Ryan (did I miss anyone?). Lot of hard work, big thinking and flawless execution. Thank you team!

I received some interesting positive feedbacks and discussion on an earlier post this week titled “A Simple Life Or Green Living Are Not The Solutions. They Distract Us From The Real Number One Problem”. I’ve received a dozen of emails and some great comments /discussions from the linkedin group "Design For Social Change" which I'd like to share here:

Manuel Toscano, Design Principal, Zago NY

“There are many problems and many systems that can benefit from more design thinking, more involvement and support from the design community, but I wound't argue that it should start from one place, or in one way. I say this even while agreeing with you that empowering women (everywhere) is proven to be the social investment that brings the most significant returns.”

Jeremy Faludi. Green Design Strategist, SF

"I agree that nowhere near enough attention is given to this issue. The key is that it's not just a social issue--it's an environmental issue. Empowering women in developing countries is the only effective (and the only humane and responsible) way to stop the population bomb. Easing population pressure helps solve all the other environmental problems we have (all forms of resource depletion, and all forms of pollution). The fact that it's also pivotal in fixing a lot of social and economic problems is icing on the cake. I agree, it should be a very high priority. (Note, though: why is it all three of us who've talked about this so far are men?)”

Kara Pecknold, Design Researcher at Emily Carr Institute, Van

“I'll jump in as one female voice in this discussion. I'm sure there are others who could add additional ideas. I concur, we're past "green living. After working with a group of women in Rwanda, I would suggest that empowerment is definitely needed. Actually finding out what these women regard as empowerment is something else altogether. The "developing world" is a broad title and each country faces its own political, social and cultural realities that can affect this empowering. But talking to the people we perceive as needing it might be a step in the right direction. They likely have some good ideas to contribute to this conversation. “

Maz Kessler, Creative Director, NY

“Hi all - such a huge area for discussion, but extremely glad to see it surfaced here. there's definitely momentum building around an increasing awareness (at last!) of the benefits of investing in women globally, and what this brings to communities, regions and nations. This rapidly emerging awareness (hesitate to call it a movement yet...) has recently been given mainstream visibility in high-income countries through e.g. Nick Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn's book 'half the sky'... through the 'girl effect', through the NGO Women to Women, and eve ensler's work in DRC etc……as designers we can bring our creativity to communications and advocacy in high-income countries, as well as into advocacy and design projects in low-income countries (anyway, immense and great topic and yes I'm also female)”.

Growing up in big cities and having lived and worked in Boston, London, Toronto, LA, HK, Milan, the women empowerment thing was never under my radar screen. I worked with some of the smartest and well educated women and it never came to my mind this is such a big issue in the developing worlds. I always thought we were making good progress. While a lot of progress has been made in the last 20 years improving women's health and education, women in the developing world are still at the periphery of the economy, marginalized in segregated low-paying jobs, or practically barred from education and work opportunities. The situations are different country to country but the problem is still very serious as a whole.

I am very interested in what innovation is needed to make the change. Social innovation that links to empowering women is what I am talking about. An example, in 1999, 35 women on the isolated island of Char Montaz in Bangladesh discovered they could make a huge difference in their community by going into business (none of them have MBAs no surprise). Taking a lot of criticism since they were breaking society's rules by working outside the home and that’s a big deal there. They later got funding from the World Bank and the UN Development Program, and assistance from a local non-governmental organization Prokaushali Sangsad Ltd.

They started to build battery-powered direct current lamps to replace kerosene lanterns widely used in local homes—a known source of indoor air pollution. And as they mastered lamp construction, they also learned about quality control, business development and marketing. Soon, their critics were their customers. Within two years, they were bringing low-cost light and clean power to over 1,200 households, shops, and boats, and 300 businesses. Shops stayed open longer, children spent more time on school work at home, and incomes increased by 30 percent. My point is, this is not just a moral or a human rights or a political issue, it's deep down also an economic issue as well as global climate change issue.

Hope everyone have a very scary weekend.

A Simple Life Or Green Living Are Not The Solutions. They Distract Us From The Real Number One Problem.

I was hearing a group of designers here in Boston saying that the only way to solve our sustainability problems is to simplify our life and go back to creating less garbage. They went on to suggest that if the government decides to stop collecting garbage, and they end up piling up in our backyard or frontyard, we would then feel the problem and start living a simple life - a radical idea but a silly one that doesn’t work. Why don’t we go back to riding horses and we do that, we will have some serious horseshit problem to deal with.

A simple life has a different meaning and a different value for every person. For some, it means eliminating all but the essential, eschewing chaos for peace, and spending your time doing what’s important to you and not accumulating things. Not a bad idea but you can’t take it to the extreme. We love things and we love to own beautiful things. However, moving to simplicity isn’t always a simple process. It’s a journey, not a destination, and it can often be a journey of two steps forward, and one backward.

If you are feeling a sense of progress with your green habits including driving 20 minutes somewhere to buy organic good versus buying from across the street or only wear recycle cotton Ts not knowing the amount of water needed to recycle them. Even if you buy organically grown cotton, you have not considered the amount of land needed to grow them and the whole process is very long and very chemically intensive. It is just a false sense of sustainability.

Reading the essay in Orion by Derrick Jensen on the plane, he is aything that any “simple life” movement is just a political act, the radical environmentalist argues that focusing on our personal choices as a solve for eco-destruction is not just misguided, but also useless. He shows how agriculture and industry are responsible for the bulk of water and energy use as well as emission and waste. He is saying it is cool if you wan to live simple, but if you think you are making it is effective or if it distracts you from the larger environmental issues, that’s not good.

To become true steward of our planet, first stop using the “flawed” notion that humans inevitably harm the environment. We have the power to redesign our societies forward but not going backward. Technology can power us forward? Perhaps. The key question remains, with global population of 9.2b people by 2050, can we produce enough food to feed everyone? Don’t worry about the quality of air and water for now. With industrial production of nitrogen fertilizer and super-crop, there are not enough land as cropland grows by 8% and population 80% in the next three decades.

Every time I drive past downtown New York, Toronto or Chicago, the office buildings were all lit up for whatever reason. I cannot imagine how much energy they consume. There are no ones in those offices. Buildings play a major role in the environmentally unfriendly trends projecting energy consumption to increase by 37% and greenhouses gases by 36% over the next 20 years in North America alone. Adding all top 50 cities in the world we begin to see the magnitude of the issue. No one is doing anything. But does really matter?

We sometimes forget that the world's number ONE problem is population. There are too just many of us in this world. Overpopulation is the ONLY problem. Our planet cannot handle so many people. Current estimates put the planet's population at more than 7 billion, if we stay at 4-5 billion, we can easily manage all other problems. Our top 10 challenges are overconsumption, the need for more sustainable practices worldwide, the growing need for energy conservation, the need for humans to see themselves as part of the global ecosystem, overall carbon dioxide emissions, the need to develop ways to produce consumer products from renewable resources, and dwindling fresh water resources.

We need a global solution for population control fast. To make things fair universality is necessary but not sufficient. We must also address why the third world people think they need more children when they are surrounded by underfed and dying children. Having said that, children in the west use 30 times as much of the world's natural resources as a third world child. Think about it, if 20,000 people unfortunately died in an earthquake, the losses were made up before we see the news on CNN. There can be more than 100 extra people born while you leave a Facebook message on a friend’s wall. Something radical must be done to get the world to wake up and face this reality.

Does Intergrative Creavity Exist Today? Where Do They Exist? D-Schools Or B-Schools? And Is There A Place For A-School In Our Future?

Someone asked me who’s the design head in our company? I am not sure. My answer would be everyone. Everyone is a strategist and everyone is a designer (or design thinker) in our company. We long understood strategy doesn’t necessarily come from strategist, and design idea doesn’t necessarily come from designer. Design wants to change the world and often over thinking and under-doing. Strategy wants to change the world but stuck in an old paradigm of management. Strategy, management and design are not what it used to be.

“Strategy” is distancing itself from “Competition” and “Innovation” is distancing itself from “Invention”. Strategy now needs design and design needs strategy in order to have impact. Met John Maeda today and his idea of the difference between art and design is design should is being ”relevant” and art should is being “free” and design is “producable” and art is “imaginable”. Those are good observations.

Let’s come back to business strategy for a moment, if “strategy’ is “predictable” then innovation is “unknown”. Business schools are not very good in teaching people seeing, imagining, conceptualizing, and visualizing the future. Design schools are very good in training people to imagining and asking questions, but terrible in understand from a system view how the world works.

Strategy’s ultimate goal is to create power and exercise them to your benefit. Design’s ultimate goal is to come up with solutions to a predefined problem. Art’s goal is to ask questions and reflect on some of our paradoxes and express deeper concepts that sometimes words fail to do the job. If strategy is ultimately about effectively exercising power, the answers to these questions may convey a good deal about how we think strategically. There is ample ground to conclude that our ability simply to cope with—much less shape—a future of pronounced complexity, uncertainty, and turbulence will depend in large measure on the prevalence of strategic thinkers in our midst. Ideas and the ability to generate them seem increasingly likely, in fact, to be more important than capital and weapons.

The question is what type of thinkers do we need  that has the intellect to dissect the status quo, grasp the big picture, discern important relationships among events, understand causation and events, generate imaginative possibilities to inspire, and operate easily in the conceptual realm as well as understand execution and change. Integrative creativity simply does not exist today.

As Maeda puts it, "Right now, our nation sees left-brain thinking, focused on logic and reasoning, as critical to future economic development. You can see it in the emphasis on the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) subjects. What's missing from STEM is right brain thinking -- embodied by what I call the key "IDEA" (Intuition, Design, Emotion, Art). We need both both halves of the brain to work together and channel that brilliance through our hands and propagate ideas throughout our world." That's what we meant by the power of D-schools + b-schools.

Happy 60th Anniversary China! When Are We Seeing A Parade Of Chinese Global Brands?

Happy Birthday China! China is celebrating its rise to a world power over 60 years of Communist rule today, showing the world their capabilities in its biggest-ever parade of state-of-the-art military hardware. It has come a long way and still has a long way to go. I attended a cocktail party this evening and talked to many China observers on what this means to the world. And for multi-nationals?

This week I’ve been busy working on developing our China footprint or more precisely Shanghai is our beachhead office. I am excited but at the same time well aware of the challenges operating in that environment. Everything you know can be wrong overnight. No experts can tell you what's your market is like today and how it is changing tomorrow.

China's rapid urbanization will further change the social architecture of the country and causing pains. According to some McKinsey research, in 2025-2030 one in five of the global city dwellers will be in Chinese cities. Based on current trends, China in 2025 will have 221 cities with more than one million people compared to Europe with 35. 25 of China's cities will have more than 5 million people China's cities in 2025 will generate about 95% of its GDP (versus 75% today) Of the 350 million people added to Chinese cities by 2025 (about the population of the USA) 240 million will be migrants

Asia’s emerging economies are already leading the way for a recovery, or was there a recession at all? It depends on how you look it at. Chinese societies are just taking a baby step to transform to a consumer society. As many US consumers are transforming out it (not sure if it possible at all). Are the largest global consumer companies ready for this momentous shift?

McKinsey’s advice is that even the most sophisticated multinationals must change significantly to realize Asia’s growth potential. The region is as diverse as it is vast. Its markets come in a bewildering assortment of sizes and development stages, and its customers hail from a multitude of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Their tastes and preferences evolve constantly. The speed and scale of change in Asian consumer markets can surprise even experienced executives. To meet the challenge, global companies will have to organize themselves regionally to coordinate strategy and use resources in the most efficient way while at the same time targeting the tastes of consumers on a very local level.

The structural changes required by China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the broader demands of economic globalization and the information revolution will generate significantly new levels and types of social and economic disruption. China has proven politically resilient, economically dynamic, and increasingly assertive in positioning itself for a leadership role in Asia. And becoming a global power.

For those Chinese brands, they are all gearing up to play the global game and most are not well prepared. China’s domestic market is becoming ever more crowded and a strong domestic market will power up Chinese brand for international expansion. There is an urgent call for Chinese companies to master new skills that traditionally reside with non-Chinese multinationals such as marketing, branding, talent development, customer service, M&A management etc. It is not an easy path.

Take Lenovo for example, they are facing challenges both domestically and internationally. Lenovo is losing ground to rivals and Yang is replacing Amelio as CEO. Liu Chuanzhi, the company founder who stepped aside after the IBM deal, will return as chairman. It is a big setback. Despite a $93 million profit in domestic sales, overall results were hit by the losses in overseas sales and admitted that Lenovo was a "weak competitor" in the US and Europe. Weak is not a strong enough word to describe their marketing, pricing as well as distribution strategies. They still need to go global. Liu said in a press release. "But at this important time we want to pay particular attention to our China business as it represents the foundation of our global business and growth strategy."

The first problem is there is simply a lack of real global strategy and I don’t mean just a product strategy. Lenovo’s second challenge is a flawed sales and marketing strategies. They overrated their brand power and there aren’t much outside China. Replace the Thinkpad logo too fast. Lenovo failed to understand that blurry branding and not giving enough thoughts to pricing strategy.

Going global is not so simple. It is even more complex today with the Internet making information transparent, geo-politics and diverging consumer tastes. The most common mistake is companies see globalization as taking a superior (usually by false assumption) business model, product platform, branding and quickly adapting to another country. Oh yes it is about scale and that alone is not strategic.

The right approach is to rethink your business model globally, not taking an existing business model and adapting it to China or India. First step is to identify key differences in customer needs (often opposite) and understand how to answer to those needs. Not stripping down of an existing product line and call it localization. The real strategic focus should not be on the tension between global scale economies and local considerations as it blinds companies to the very real opportunities. Instead, spend plenty of efforts to exploit the differences and in their rush to exploit the similarities across borders, multinationals have discounted the original global strategy: arbitrage, the strategy of difference and design your business around those differences.

As more and more companies like Lenovo are slowly emerging on the global stage, they should put more thoughts on what strategies are available (Chinese firms prefer to spend money on feng sui consultants and not strategy consultants) and what implications do they pose for their more-established competitors from developed markets? How are these companies building marketing talent (a big limitation), leveraging low costs, and market access in their home countries? How do they approach global market entry, organizational development, and mergers and acquisitions? What opportunities do such companies present to Western multinationals? A feng-sui man cannot really give you answers on those strategic questions.