Global Marketing Management: At the Dawn of the New Millennium

Author(s): William Lazer and Eric H. Shaw

Source: Journal of International Marketing, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2000), pp. 65-77
Published by: American Marketing Association
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Executive Insights:
Global Marketing Management:
At the Dawn of the New Millennium

Dramatic global economic changes are under way at the dawn of ABSTRACT
the new millennium, such as the new Euro currency, Asian eco
nomic downturn, instantaneous flows of capital, new global con
glomerates, and the growth of the Internet. These changes will have
a profound impact on global marketing management, including in
creasing risk and uncertainty, real-time information management,
and rapid response to global developments. Cross-impact analysis
will become a more important tool for deeding with uncertain inter
actions among complex forces. The managerial mindset will have
to grasp the big picture, think outside the box, discount the present
to create the future, and move far beyond benchmarking. This will
lead to changes in decision-making orientations, including a shift
from relatively stable environments and mechanistic management
approaches to more turbulent environments and systemic manage
ment approaches and a shift from hard facts for solving problems
to virtual facts for problem prevention.

A sea change has occurred in the past decade in the macro

marketing forces shaping global marketing activities. The William Lazer and
confluence of several important external developments has Eric H. Shaw
challenged global marketing managers with situations unlike
those encountered previously. They are reshaping global
marketing management thought and practice. As these forces
carry over into the new millennium they will continue to es
tablish critical parameters for global marketing plans and
strategies, raise questions regarding widely held beliefs about
multinational marketing operations, result in rethinking
many of our accepted assumptions and paradigms, and lead
to different approaches and perspectives to global marketing
decision making.

This article is designed as a "think piece" to chart recent

macromarketing developments and the impact they will con
tinue to have on marketing management operations at the
dawn of the new millennium. The ideas presented are based
on a comprehensive review of the current international busi
ness and marketing literature and discussions with involved
business executives and academic thinkers around the
Submitted June 1999
world. The article has four main objectives: first, to review Revised July 1999
the important external forces influencing global marketing ? Journal of International Marketing
management now and in the future; second, to consider the Vol. 8, No. 1, 2000, pp. 65-77
ISSN 1069-031X
implications for global marketing operations; third, to dis

65

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 cuss the evolving new global marketing management mind
set; and fourth, to contemplate the likely changes in manage
rial decision orientations. In so doing, we do not expect
readers to agree with or accept our observations, thoughts,
and perspectives out of hand. Rather, our purpose is to stim
ulate intellectual discourse, raise pertinent questions and is
sues, and encourage an exchange of ideas and insights
regarding global marketing management.

There are several important and singular external develop

MACIROMARKEnNG'S ments that marketing managers will have to factor into their
External Forces global marketing plans, strategies, and operations. These in
clude the coming on stream of the Euro; the economic slow
down of the Asian "tigers"; exporting economic difficulties;
instantaneous flows of global capital; challenges to the Inter
national Monetary Fund (IMF) formula; new trading align
ments and the World T?ade Organization (WTO); interactive
economic effects and global overcapacity; the emergence of
global conglomerates; and the growth of the Internet, the
World Wide Web, and e-commerce. These macromarketing
forces will be affected in varying degrees by nations and
multinational companies, both individually and collectively.

The appearance of the Euro, a single currency for 14 nations

The Coming on of the European Monetary Union, is a signal event. It has the
Stream of the Euro potential to reshape global markets and trading relationships,
especially in Europe and among European-based companies.
Undoubtedly, enhanced price transparency will develop,
consumers will be better informed, price comparisons across
national boundaries will be facilitated, businesses will real
ize some cost savings, and keener competition will follow.
The appearance of the Euro raises significant questions. How
will the Euro affect specific world markets? Will the U.S. dol
lar maintain its dominance as the single global monetary
standard, or will it be eroded by the Euro? Will the Euro give
European businesses a marketing edge, such as the dollar has
given U.S. firms, that they never had before? Will the
Euro-dollar relationship be volatile like the dollar-yen rela
tionship, resulting in similar ups and downs? In the light of
these and other factors, particularly harmonizing prices by
making them transparent, marketing managers will be faced
with reassessing their global marketing strategies, decisions,
and actions to account for the Euro in the new millennium.

For many years, the outstanding economic achievements of

The Economic Slowdown Japan and the Asian tigers have been widely heralded,
of the Asian Tigers copied, and held up as models for developing countries
around the globe. Recently, however, the Asian economies
encountered serious economic difficulties. How long will the
current downturn last? How deep will it be? The advisability
of making fundamental economic adjustments, particularly
in the financial and trade sectors, is being argued. The ap

66 William Lazer and Eric H. Shaw

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proaches taken will have a direct impact on markets and
marketing. Debates continue regarding the desirability of sig
nificant government intervention?the collectivistic market
approach versus laissez faire, the individualistic market ap
proach. Historically, Asians have generally favored the for
mer, Americans the latter, and Europeans something in
between. Does the Asian situation suggest a shift of empha
sis? Will Asians move toward the center? Will Europeans
move toward individualistic market approaches? Will Amer
icans move toward still greater deregulation? The perfor
mance of economies and their increasing or decreasing
degrees of regulation will significantly affect the marketing
activities of multinational firms, and the millennium will
see an increasing emphasis on the role and importance
of navigating the complex regulatory world by global market
ing managers.

In the recent past, a commonly adopted approach to deal

with economic difficulties by countries such as Japan, Korea, Exporting Economic
Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia was the mer Difficulties
cantilist philosophy of increasing exports while restricting
imports. This strategy of exporting one country's economic
difficulties to others is viable only to the extent that trading
partners, such as the United States, maintain relatively open
markets. It does not work when trading partners adopt simi
lar postures. In the future, trading partners will expect and
demand the reduction and elimination of trade barriers,
which will extend old markets and open new ones. This will
generate keener competition, reduce the protected market
position that many national companies have enjoyed, and
force local companies to compete on a more globally equal
playing field. The existence of national companies based on
protected domestic markets will decline as marketing man
agers become forced to compete on global standards of prod
uct and service quality and price.

The resounding effects of instantaneous flows of mega

amounts of capital around the world on economies and mar Instantaneous Flows
kets are currently of great concern to governments globally. of Global Capital
As investors move billions of dollars rapidly among nations
in search of better opportunities, aided and abetted by in
stantaneous flows of market information, the money can
quickly destabilize economies. Countries such as Malaysia,
Indonesia, and Thailand have experienced its impact. The re
sults readily spill over to other countries, which affects mar
ket opportunities throughout broad regions. How the highly
industrialized nations of the world might best respond to this
unique development is presently unclear. Debates continue
whether it is necessary to put a new overarching global fi
nancial architecture in place. Neither existing economic poli
cies nor marketing management practices offer good answers
at this juncture. What is clear is that any adjustments made

Executive Insights: Global Marketing Management 67

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 and actions taken can have direct and immediate impacts on
mode of entry into specific markets. The potential conse
quences of mega capital flows, their impact on exchange
rates, and their destabilizing effects are particularly relevant
for the strategic marketing planning questions of which par
ticular global markets to target and which to avoid.

The programs of the IMF, originally designed to promote eco

Challenges to the IMF Formula nomic growth and development among less-developed coun
tries in the long run, have generally led to the creation of
more-profitable markets and improved trading opportunities.
In the short run, however, they often dictate restrictive actions.
The basic formulations for meeting economic difficulties in
volve "economic belt tightening" by nations to qualify for IMF
assistance. Unfortunately, this approach does not appear to be
working. The cure often seems as bad as the disease. The recent
economic and political difficulties experienced in Indonesia,
Malaysia, and Russia are cases in point The disruptions attrib
uted to IMF guidelines raise serious questions about the guide
lines' efficacy as they continue to affect global markets
negatively. Questions arise about which actions are most effec
tive in promoting sustainable growth and expanding market
opportunities among developing nations. What are the bes
models to apply in specific circumstances? How will the new
approaches affect outsourcing by multinationals?

New regional trading relationships and WTO rulings and ac

New Trading Alignments tions, which reflects both competition and cooperation among
and WTO nations, particularly among contiguous countries in a geo
graphic region, will lead to continuing realignments of market
opportunities. Global marketing organizations and operations
are affected as markets are closed or restricted to businesses of
nonmember country firms. Marketing managers have had to
factor the market implications of WTO actions and such al
liances as the European Community, North American Free
T?ade Agreement, Mercosur, and Association of Southeast
Asian Nations trade blocks into their decision calculus. They
will soon be faced with additional considerations arising from
accommodating trade with China and Russia, the impact of
conflicting goals of WTO member countries, and some of the
clashing interests of those promoting free trade with unionists,
environmentalists, and human rights advocates.

As multinational firms increase their global outreach, the in

Interactive Economie Effects terconnectedness and linkages among companies and coun
and Global Overcapacity tries will intensify. The effects of international marketing
decisions and actions that formerly had a small impact on
only a few firms and local economies will be magnified. The
effects will likely spread, much like the ripples in a pond,
among companies, countries, regions, and the world as a
whole. More important, management decisions will involve
such concerns as engaging in megamergers, choosing strate

68 William Lazer and Eric H. Shaw

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gic alliance and joint venture partners, developing new forms
of affiliation, realigning the organization to create greater
flexibility, and using the Internet as a new mode of market
entry. Marketing managers will have to be ever more acutely
attuned to the effects of the economic ups and downs of ac
tual and potential trading partners, as well as to government
decrees and business decisions in other countries.

Global overcapacity and excess supply presently exist in

almost every major industry: automobiles, airlines, ship
building, major and small appliances, chemicals, and phar
maceuticals. The situation in the future is likely to be
exacerbated as large multinational companies tend to seek a
presence in virtually every major global market. Excess ca
pacity has a tendency to squeeze profit margins and acceler
ate businesses failures. In the future, global marketing
managers will likely confront the difficult challenges of try
ing to deal with even more intensive competition for re
sources and customers.

We are now witnessing the emergence of large-scale global

mergers. These are of such magnitude that they represent The Emergence of
much more than the usual merger in both scope and implica Global Conglomerates
tions. Examples include British Petroleum's merger with
Amoco and the recent Daimler-Benz takeover of Chrysler, the
largest industrial merger in history. These mergers not only
transcend country and cultural boundaries but also involve a
myriad of new legal, financial, and managerial considera
tions, for which the rules and guidelines are not yet clear. For
example, despite its protests, DaimlerChrysler was thrown
out of the American Automobile Manufacturers trade associ
ation. General Motors and Ford contended it was no longer
an American manufacturer.

These megamergers signal a shift in market power among

U.S., European, and Japanese interests with accompanying
global marketing implications. The appearance of giant, glob
ally oriented conglomerates?rooted in two or more nations,
possessing tremendous financial leverage and market power,
combining product lines, merging global distribution sys
tems, capitalizing on their combined marketing know-how,
realizing efficiencies and cost savings from scale economies
worldwide, and generating seamless multinational marketing
networks?proclaims a new era in global marketing manage
ment. Such conglomerates could well represent the format of
the future for extending a company's global reach, competing
in niches almost everywhere in the world, providing the
scale necessary to support research and development, and
sustaining new technologies and innovations until the firm
gains a presence in the market. Global megamergers portend
significant implications for future international marketing
developments in regulations and antitrust considerations.

Executive Insights: Global Marketing Management 69

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Growth of the Internet, the
Web, and E-Commerce
Marketing Management
Implications
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Today, e-commerce represents a global marketing revolution
at the introductory stage of its life cycle. Although e-com
merce currently accounts for only an estimated 1% of U.S.
consumer sales and much less worldwide, it has been feasi
ble on the Web only since 1994, with the advent of Internet
browsers and search engines. In the future, e-commerce will
not only continue growing exponentially but also change
global marketing more than any communication technology
of the past four and a half centuries since the printing press.
The Internet overcomes boundaries. Consumers worldwide
will have access to products and services of providers from
around the globe, almost immediately, day or night, at the
lowest possible prices.
E-commerce provides consumers with timely and pertinent
information, especially product availability and alternative
prices, which fosters comparison shopping. It gives manufac
turers and distributors new and more effective means of con
tacting consumers. It shifts advertising media, promotion,
and distribution costs, which provides more effective sup
plier and customer databases, encourages market offerings
more in line with consumer preferences, and stimulates a
growing global consumer culture. Moreover, the Internet her
alds the end of the old global issue of choosing between mass
production, which results in standardization, and product
differentiation, which provides greater customization, in fa
vor of a new mode of global operation: mass customization.
Dell Computer Corporation, which maintains no inventory
and builds each computer to order, is an example of this new
model of mass customization.
The Internet overcomes time and space barriers, links com
pany operations and people around the globe, and furnishes
marketing managers with more up-to-date information al
most instantly. It also fosters an external and internal com
munications climate that promotes greater interfirm and
intrafirm efficiency and effectiveness. Extranets promote
communication between trading partners by directly linking
a company's inventory requirements with its suppliers. In
tranets foster communication within a firm by directly link
ing everyone within an organization, from the home office to
remote field offices. As a result of the Internet, e-commerce is
now emerging and a global marketing revolution is under
way. The thrust will intensify as information technology
spreads and personal computer ownership grows worldwide.
The Internet will increase niches, expand competition, lower
prices, and enlarge customer choices.
What are some of the important implications for global mar
keting management of these external factors? Although the
focus here is on the more general implications of the exter
nal forces listed, managers are more concerned with the spe
70 William Lazer and Eric H. Shaw
cific implications for their particular marketing plans, strate
gies, and operations. They confront the challenging tasks of
discerning the meanings of broader externalities for specific
product, company, industry, and country decisions. This in
volves dealing with the uncertain interactions of complex
macro forces, determining the likelihood of various events
occurring, and deciding what the effects will be on the com
pany. A useful tool in this regard is cross-impact analysis,
which uses matrices to help management estimate the likeli
hood that various events will take place, sort out the interac
tions among the various events, and discern how the
occurrence of one event is likely to affect others. Cross
impact analysis provides a tool for managers to deal with a
wide range of complex events and uncertain occurrences,
such as the external factors shaping market opportunities
and their interactions, in a relatively straightforward and
methodical manner.

The effects of the external factors will be unlike any previ

ously encountered by marketing managers. Therefore, care
fully developed and effective rules of thumb, guidelines, and
models, so helpful in the past, will offer little marketing
management assistance. New guidelines and approaches will
need to be developed and tested. More than ever before, mar
keters in the new millennium will find themselves operating
in uncharted global waters, facing new and often confusing
situations and searching for useful policy and decision
guidelines. Information overload is likely to occur as data
gathering and processing capabilities expand. As information
increases, selection becomes increasingly important. Conse
quently, more attention will be paid to determining and fo
cusing on the most pertinent data and then translating them
into knowledge?information that marketing managers can
use to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

In the future, global marketing managers can count on con

fronting market situations characterized by greater risk and
uncertainty in decision making. This raises strategic issues
for dealing effectively with global marketing planning and
strategy. In general, to the extent that risk and uncertainty
can be spread over larger numbers and a greater diversity of
suppliers, customers, or products, some of the risk and un
certainty can be ameliorated.

The marketing environment is increasingly characterized by

instantaneity. As a result of technological innovations the
flows of such critical resources as information and money are
virtually instantaneous. Speed to market will become even
more critical. This rapidity of developments fundamentally
changes how marketing managers function and how they
time their decision making. Increasingly, they will have on
line, real-time access to critical decision inputs about suppli

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 ers, competitors, and customers. An unheralded trans
parency of global marketing operations will exist. The whole
tempo and pace of marketing management decisions and op
erations will quicken. Marketing managers facing the chal
lenge of responding immediately to changing market
conditions and competitors' actions may well develop the
equivalent of a "rapid response team"?a group of people
with specialized skills who are prepared to deal with the un
expected and are able to respond immediately and decisively
to critical market situations as they arise.

As globalization progresses, national economies around the

world will continue to become even more closely intercon
nected and intertwined. Economic developments in one or a
few countries will have a more direct and immediate impact
on markets around the world. Restrictive business practices
will have to be better addressed and handled, particularly in
the face of excess global supply and potential movements of
large amounts of capital. Marketing managers will have to give
increasing attention to company-specific implications of WTO
rulings, IMF pronouncements, G7 meetings, regional trading
block arrangements, government actions on trade and tariffs,
no-tariff decrees, tax changes, trade missions, and so forth.

What do the implications of the external changes mean for

Toward a New global marketing management thinking? Basically, they will
Global Marketing require a new mindset. We first explore some of the likely
Management Mindset mindset changes and then consider their impacts on deci
sion-making orientations.

Currently, marketing managers are attuned to an approach of

measurement, analysis, prediction, and control. This per
spective, which is rather mechanistic, is in line with manage
ment approaches for relatively stable and predictable
environments. It focuses on regulating inputs to achieve
clearly defined outputs. However, the emergence of unstable,
disorderly, unpredictable, and even chaotic global market
conditions points to the need for different thinking. To deal
effectively with future global marketing conditions, a mind
set attuned to dealing with unexpected, unstructured, less
predictable marketing situations will be required. Few global
marketing managers will be comfortable accepting disorderly
and unstable business environments as the norm. Conse
quently, management attention will be directed to defining,
understanding, and communicating core company values, vi
sion, and mission. This will provide the direction neces
sary?the rudder?to help managers deal with turbulent
marketing situations, create change, foster innovation, and
make more risky decisions. A turbulent environment will
also underscore the dangers of making straight-line projec
tions or assuming that global situations that appear similar
on the surface should be treated alike from a decision per

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spective. Global risk-reward situations will be nonlinear so
that small variations in marketing approaches and operations
may result in significant sales and profit variations. In the
face of rapid change and greater risk, grasping the big picture
and developing contingency plans to deal with alternative
environmental scenarios will become critical.

Global marketing managers will be challenged to discount

the present to create the future. This means refraining and re
orienting strategic global marketing management thinking.
Redefining a company's strategic marketing thinking, its ba
sic vision, is not merely a matter of extending current opera
tions "to do what we do better." A fundamental reassessment
of marketing assets and capabilities is necessary to prevent
managers from locking into present thought processes and
current operations. What is necessary is a focus on "what we
need to do differently." Such a focus requires thinking out
side the box, freeing marketing management thought by start
ing from ground zero, and determining the parameters of
future possibilities. But it is difficult for a company to let go
of the past, particularly when it is enjoying current success,
to reinvent itself for the future. Although this posture is not
easy for managers to accept, it is basic to redefining and rein
venting global marketing operations.

Benchmarking, which focuses attention on meeting the

thrusts of the most effective competitors, has proved to be
a popular approach of many companies. But meeting com
petition assumes that competitors know what should be
done and tends to lock management thinking into the past.
Future global marketing managers might profit by focusing
their attention on leading rather than meeting competi
tors?on leapfrogging them. A more appropriate mindset
requires a forward-looking future orientation. Although the
actions of competitors must be taken into account, future
global marketing management thought must not be gov
erned by competitors' parameters but must focus on becom
ing the leading edge.

Global markets in the future are becoming more dynamic

and more competitive with an ever increasing acceleration
in the rate of change. This implies that global marketing
managers will be faced with continuously redefining and
reevaluating markets, which emphasizes the importance of
continuous renewal of the customer base and the opportuni
ties customers portend. A twin focus must be brought into
play that incorporates attention to satisfying existing cus
tomers while continuously seeking new ones?constantly
building and improving the customer base. This further im
plies keeping in touch with market dynamics, monitoring
where markets are moving, and gearing marketing programs
to emerging market opportunities.

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Changing Decision
Making Orientations
Figure 1.
Decision Focus:
Environment Versus
Management Approaches
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The consequences of macromarketing external forces and
their global marketing implications are reflected in the
changing management mindset. This in turn suggests a reori
entation of decision-making approaches for the new millen
nium. Both the focus adopted by marketing managers and the
way in which decisions are made will be affected. The transi
tion will occur in such decision-making activities as the type
of information gathered, the timeliness of action, the factors
considered relevant in choosing among alternatives, the deci
sion criteria adopted, and the decision approaches used.
This reorientation is shown in Figures 1 through 4. The fig
ures portray some of the transitions that will likely occur.
Figure 1 represents a shift in decision environments and the
management approaches adopted. The relatively stable envi
ronments and mechanistic management approaches of the
past will give way to more turbulent environments and sys
temic management approaches of the future. Figure 2 high
lights changing marketing management perspectives and
indicates that the prevalent national and internal business fo
cus of the present will shift toward a future global and exter
nal decision perspective. Figure 3 deals with managerial
thought processes and approaches to risk. The movement
will be from accepted traditional management thought and a
Turbulent
Environment
Future
Emphasis
Current
Emphasis
Stable
Environment
74 William Lazer and Eric H. Shaw
 Global
Perspective
Figure 2.
Decision Focus:
Varying Perspectives
Future
Emphasis

Traditional
Emphasis

National
Perspective

Risk
Taking
Figure 3.
Decision Focus:
Thinking Versus Risk
Future
Emphasis

Current
Emphasis

Risk
Aversion

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 Future Facts/
Figure 4.
Decision Focus: Anticipation
Problems Versus Information
Future
Emphasis

Current
Emphasis

Hard Data/
Facts

risk-averse orientation to new approaches embodying think

ing outside of the box along with greater acceptance of risk.
Figure 4 relates the type of decision information with how
management approaches business issues. The more tradi
tional emphasis on factual information and hard data, cou
pled with management's perspective of solving problems,
will change to a greater emphasis on a "future facts" type of
data that is less factual and more virtual as well as a decision
making approach emphasizing problem prevention rather
than problem solution.

A dramatic increase in the magnitude and acceleration of

Concluding Comments
macromarketing factors is creating sweeping changes in
global marketing management operations. Their impacts will
continue to be reflected in new thinking for international
marketing plans, strategies, and operations. Widely held mar
keting management beliefs will continually be challenged,
which will lead to fundamental changes in the way global
marketing activities are both perceived and carried out.

To accommodate the changes, a new mindset will shift from

the mechanistic approach adopted in the past for dealing
with gradual change to new management approaches more
conducive to dealing with unstructured, less predictable
global market situations. Rapidly changing business environ

76 William Lazer and Eric H. Shaw

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ments will become accepted as the norm. Marketing man
agers will reframe strategic global marketing management The Authors
analysis to do more thinking outside the box and will re
William Lazer is
assess company assets and approaches in order to redefine
and reinvent global marketing operations. Benchmarking distinguished research scholar
and Sensormatic chair in
will be tempered by approaches to leading?even leapfrog
ging?competitors, and greater emphasis will need to be marketing at Florida Atlantic
given to operating more transparently with suppliers and University. He is also professor
customers to create global supply and demand value chains emeritus of marketing at
more effectively. Michigan State University.

There will be a shift in the decision-making orientations of Eric H. Shaw is professor

global marketing managers: a shift from relatively stable en of marketing at Florida
vironments and mechanistic management approaches to Atlantic University.
more turbulent environments and systemic management ap
proaches, a change from the prevalent national and internal
business focus to a global and external perspective, a move
ment from accepted traditional management thought and
avoidance of risk to thinking outside the box and greater ac
ceptance of risk, a transition from the more traditional man
agement emphasis on factual information and hard data
coupled with management's perspective of solving problems
to a greater emphasis on future facts and an orientation to
ward preventing problems. These are some of the external
forces, mindset changes, and decision-making orientations
that global marketing management can anticipate at the dawn
of the new millennium.

Executive Insights: Global Marketing Management 77

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