Global Business and Sustainability Name of the Student Name of the University Author's note

Running head: GLOBAL BUSINESS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Global Business and Sustainability
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

1GLOBAL BUSINESS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Introduction
One of the major objectives of most of the business organisations around the world is to
expand and grow the business. The expansion strategy of a company is based on a number of
factors such as the scale of the business, the target market of the company, the approach of the
business etc. Multinational companies’ strategies to decide upon the right way to expand the
business, with the help of market research the companies develop strategies (Ciabuschi et al.
2012). Selecting a country of operation the mode of entry that is best suited etc are some of the
major decisions that surround the process of expansion in the international borders (Ciabuschi et
al. 2012). For example: Mac Donald’s is an American company that has operations and
distribution all over the world, the strategy that the company has for expansion is franchising.
While choosing the country of expansion is based on market evaluation, the choice for setting up
a regional headquarters is also dependent on a number of factors which will help in achieving the
objectives of the organisation (Ciabuschi et al. 2012). In this assignment some of the elements in
global business like the concept of global cities and why multinational organisations choose
global cities as their regional hub. The assignment will also discuss the benefits that are
associated with the decision of a company to set up the regional headquarters in global cities.
The organisation that has been selected to conduct the study is Amazon Inc. Amazon is an
American Multinational organisation that operates in the E-commerce department as well as
established operations in IT, electronics and entertainment. The company has operations in a
number of countries and has distribution in some more approximately 100.
Global cities
A Global city can be defined to be an urban centre which has the privilege of having
some of the advantages in the global economic system (Krätke 2017). Global cities are identified

2GLOBAL BUSINESS AND SUSTAINABILITY
after globalization popularized and organisations and countries began to understand the
importance of trade and commerce (Sassen 2002). Over the years there has been an increase in
global cities and this rise is associated with the concept of globalization of economies and the
centralization of mass production within these urban centers. During the 1980s research on cities
carried out to collect data for various purposes, this is when the concept of global cities was
identified. The research resulted in some of the common features among the popular and
important cities around the world (Sassen 2002). Cities such as New York, London, Paris, and
Singapore etc are called global cities and these areas attract trade and commerce and also talents
form all over the world. These cities are considered to be the hub for innovation and business as
there is flexibility in the process there is availability of skilled and talented labour, the political,
economic as well as social conditions of the country can be determined form these areas
(Kunisch et al. 2015). Among these global cities there is also further segmentation on the level of
competitive advantage that these areas provide the country as well as the business opportunities
(Krätke 2017). Previously when the research were conducted the cities were ranked according to
the size of the population however, that trend has changed in the recent times and several other
factors like the economic dynamic of the city, the talent availability, the number of
organisational hub in the city, well connected by all the means of transport, centers of
communication and global news and also have developed infrastructures to support innovation
and development etc are also considered while listing a city in the global city index. According
to the A.T. Kearney’s Global Cities Index 2017, London ranks second in the list of the Global
cities and is called Alpha ++. One of the major criticism to the theory of global cities are the
facts that the focus of these cities drives away from the development of other cities in the country

3GLOBAL BUSINESS AND SUSTAINABILITY
and also these cities are better connected to the international market than to their domestic
economy (Krätke 2017).
Benefits of global cities to businesses
Connectivity: All the global cities around the world are well connected through a number of
modes of transport making the process of logistics easier for the company. Transportation is
significant in order to keep up with the basic logistics and supply. The cost of transportation can
be a major part of the cost of running the business and organisations are always looking forward
to ensure that this cost may be recovered with revenues, the major countries of the world are well
connected and the cost of transportation can be reduced (Ciabuschi et al. 2012). Not only that
communication is essential for any business organisation and communication facilities in a
global city is of the best quality that is available in the country and thus the company will benefit
from the same. Therefore, in order to maintain connectivity and ensure effective communication
with other units established in the country of operation the HQ is usually situated in the Global
cities (Baaij et al. 2015).
Better infrastructure options: Let’s consider the case of Amazon, which is an organisation
which is innovation driven and is founded on the basis of information technology. For such a
company to expand in the international market will have to consider the technological
infrastructure which is present in the country (Kunisch et al. 2015). In the global cities the best
services are offered and thus it will be beneficial for the companies to establish regional head
quarter here. The competitive advantages of global cities like infrastructure and support help the
company in achieving the objectives of the business with lesser barriers in the process (Baaij et
al. 2015).