Glocalization in Business: Think Global, Act Local - Detailed Essay

This essay delves into the concept of glocalization, which combines globalization and localization, emphasizing the importance of thinking globally while acting locally. Originating from Japanese business practices, glocalization involves adapting products and services to suit local cultures and preferences. The essay uses the example of the Barbie doll's failure in Japan to illustrate the necessity of aligning global offerings with local market demands. It further highlights the role of logistics in glocalization, detailing inbound and outbound logistics activities and their impact on customer satisfaction and business performance. Effective logistics management, including transportation, storage, and coordination, is crucial for companies aiming to succeed in diverse international markets by meeting local needs while maintaining a global perspective. Desklib provides access to a wide range of resources, including essays and solved assignments, to aid students in their studies.

Essay on Glocalisation -
Think Global Act Local

Table of Contents
Essay on Glocalisation – Think Global Act Local...........................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

Essay on Glocalisation – Think Global Act Local
The term “glocalisation” owes its existence to the concept of globalisation. This concept
was coined in the late 80s by the well renowned economist Theodore Levitt in his published
article named Globalization of Markets during the year 1983. Globalisation has continued to
place impact over each and every country belonging to the world’s economy since last 2.5
decades. The famous theorist named Kenichi Ohmae who is acknowledged to have given the
definition and prediction of globalisation across the economy of the world. He was the one who
was responsible for making the term applicable in professional or corporate context (Ye and et.
al., 2020). As a result of this, almost each and every company operating as a part of the global
economy applies this concept into their business activities and practices so as to derive positive
results. It is then concept that resulted in making corporations surface worldwide with the
passage of time, with a large number of businesses also attempting to apply the same successful
corporate strategy and business model that they applied in domestic markets in the global
context. In this relation, it has been acknowledged that companies over the course of time began
realising that success can be attained by them in the global context in the long run only when the
local as well as contextual dissimilarities are integrated in association with competition, cultural
aspects, market related concepts, preferences and many more. The direct consequence of all of
this integration was seen in terms of emergence of the term “glocalisation”.
Glocalisation can be summarised as the process of thinking in global context while
simultaneously acting in the local context. This term originally owe its origin to the combination
of 2 words that are namely localisation and globalisation (Tijssen, van de Klippe and Yegros,
2019). In this relation, it can be said that the meaning emerging out of this term is identified to be
equilibrium existing between the global as well as the local components with respect to the
products and services offered by the corporation together with execution of business with regards
to global as well as local aspects. The concept of glocalisation originated within the business
practices of Japanese companies and this term was comprehensibly acknowledged to be
modelled upon a Japanese term named "dochakuka" that refers to global localisation. In the
initial phase, this concept implies adaptation of techniques of farming in accordance with one’s
local conditions. During the late of 1980s period, the term “glocalisation” got converted in to a
marketing strategy owing to its adoption by the Japanese Economists within Harvard Business
Review.
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Glocalisation can still be said to be a relatively newer term within the business activities
and practices as it implies the adaption of the products and services of a brand in accordance
with the culture of the nation within which they are being marketed (Dvir, Maxwell and Yemini,
2019). Nevertheless, this concept in context of marketing can be said to be composed to elements
like adjustment of communication and translation of messages in order to take into due
consideration the local marketplace. Apart from this, glocalisation also encompasses the
consideration of facets like religious belief as well as social taboo. This has become a prominent
trend within the corporate world in relation to the manner in which an entity carries out its
business operations in the open market. The entities face extensive rivalry within domestic
marketplaces not only from local but also the global rival firms. The essence of global marketing
lies in determining as well as setting the link between a standardized (extension) approach to the
marketing mix and a localized (adaption) approach that responds to the nation or regional
differences.
As per Levitt, it has been analysed that a firm can become successful only if it takes into
due account the due premise that the world is actually a global market, incorporated apart from
the streamlined differences supposed to be existing in local or national contexts. The extensively
increasing global rivalry owes to the fact that the entities have access to the local market places.
With the increment in international trade, owing to substantial inter dependence within the
countries, the prevalence of global products at local markets can be expected. In addition to this
it has also been noted that there has been a significant incline in the magnitude of international
standardisation of product safety as well as quality standards. This can be said to be yet another
reason behind companies gaining more interest within global market places. It leads to the
elimination of the disincentive of altering the organisational offerings. Also, global competition
increase because of the increment in number of merger, acquisition and joint venture taking
place across the world.
A renowned international product named the Barbie Doll which travelled across a
number of nations as well as culture, intending at creation of awareness among public, arousal of
interest and generation of sales. Originally made in Japan (and not the USA), today different
parts of Barbie are made in various different countries: for example her hair is still made in
Japan, the plastic in her body comes from Taiwan, her cotton clothing from China, and the
moulds and pigments used in production come from the USA. Barbie being an entertainment
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product is not judged by the prospective consumers in accordance with their needs but in terms
of wants. Such “want” is characterized by the magnitude of pleasure, contentment and comfort
that this product tends to offer to its customers. The public within Japan has been largely
reluctant towards the American Doll because of the premise that this product tends to threaten
the Japanese society by developing an untrue Japanese gender identity.
An article within The New York Times in this regard talked about the story of a 6 yr old
girl named Machi Nishiyama. She was shopping for dolls within a Ginza toy shop whereby she
was shown 2 models. One of these was a beautiful doll named Barbie with an enchanting figure,
dark eyeliner, bare shouldered dress together with a pearl choker. On the contrary, another one
was named Lica and was relatively smaller than Barbie. She wore a plan and knee length dress
along with possessing big eyes. When the little girl was made to make a choice between the 2
dolls, she selected the latter and telling the reason that Barbie seems scary because of her eyes.
It was found out that the most popular doll across the globe did not get immense success
within the confines of Japan. Together with that, the creator of Barbie being Mattel Inc. which is
the biggest toy company across the world is not even found to be standing in the Top 20
positions within the territorial boundaries of Japan that is regarded to be 2nd biggest toy market
worldwide. Barbie was acknowledged to be extensively beautiful for the people of Japan. The
features of Barbie doll did not appeal to the children of the respective nation as it exterior
opposed the culture and beliefs of people within Japan. The first “physical” aspect Barbie was
supposed to be doing while making entry into Japanese market was to “keep her mouth shut”.
Japan has been acknowledged to be a nation whereby women are still seen to cover their mouth
with their hands as and when they laugh in order to make sure that their teeth do not exposed to
people. Besides this, it was seen that Barbie was too much tanned for Japanese culture, a nation
whereby females are seen to be covering all their body parts even as they go to beaches.
Furthermore, Barbie set consisted of air conditioner and big cars whereby it was seen that many
of the homes within the confines of Japan did not even have refrigerators. In addition to this,
Barbie did not attract the attention of the people within the confines of Japan because the
concerned doll was not found to be family oriented. This implies that Barbie offered the image of
a professional woman-on-the-go and she did not appear too often in family settings. Thus,
because of all of these reasons, Barbie which was a big hit within the confines of USA became a
big failure within Japan.
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On the basis of the above example of Barbie, it can be said that Barbie could not appeal
to the market and people of Japan because it was not tailored as per the needs, preferences and
culture of the locale. Thus, it is important for an entity to make sure that the products and
services offered by it at global level are aligned with the demands and wants of people of local
market. This will inflate the probability of success of organisational offerings within any country
other than the domestic market place.
Logistics is an important aspect which needs to be taken into consideration by companies
while implementing the concept of glocalisation. Logistic is determined as the effective
management of belongings of business from its origin place to final the place where it is finally
consumed by its consumer. This simply includes delivery of goods from one place to another one
in timely manner. Along with this, logistics also includes loading and unloading, packing
unpacking of the products. The main responsibilities of logistics workers to maintain appropriate
coordination between pricing, inventory control, assembly of merchandise and ticketing.
Logistics plays essential role in every organisation as it provides them support in
handling their all equipments, raw materials and other things so that they can be easily delivered
to the consumers in appropriate manner. It also maintains the flow of inventory within and
outside the organisation. Few of the main benefits that businesses simply attains by acquiring
effective logistics management system is enhanced customer satisfaction, better visibility of
organisation, higher cost savings and many others. It has also been seen that activities performed
in logistics becomes more complicated when it starts executing at international scale. This is so
because, as it requires compliance of more number of policies which ultimately makes overall
process more complicated. In addition to this, it has been analysed that business organisation also
focuses on including effective logistic management practices in order to attain few goals such as
increasing revenues, improvising operating cost structure, improvising overall customers
services, reducing overall transportation costs and many other things.
Appropriate implication of logistics management practices supports business organisation
in improvising their performance in such a manner that leads to development of strong
relationship with the customers as they are able to deliver better quality services to the
customers. Also, effective logistic process simply smoothens overall transportation process and
rectifies discrimination and non required activities within the company that might put negative
impact over the customers’ satisfaction level. Along with this, it can be simply said that if
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customers of the company are highly satisfied from them then they are easily able to develop
their positive image at market place. This reputation will support the same company in attaining
their predetermined goals and objectives which ultimately leads to success of the entity.
There are mainly two main forms of logistics which simply specifies which kind of
activities are performed by the business managers which falls under the management of flow of
goods and services from its origin to the final consumers so that they receive it effectively and
maximise their satisfaction level. The main two types of logistics activities are named as inbound
and outbound logistics. Both of them are explained as below in detailed manner:
Inbound logistics activities are highly related with the procurement and material
management within the company where overall management of raw materials to its spare parts.
Suppliers to the manufacturing process are involved. Some of the core activities involved in
inbound logistics are sourcing, storage, transportation, receiving of commodity within the
business. Here, the main focus of individuals dealing into inbound logistics is to focus on
handling overall movement of raw material to its manufacturing plants. Along with this, it has
been later analysed that inbound logistics also involves interaction between vendor as well as
other suppliers that makes working of the business more smoothers and easier. In simple words,
it can be said that inbound logistics is mainly seen as the primary activity that emphasizes on
purchasing of raw material and developing appropriate schedule between final good. In addition
to this, it also includes materials handling, transport, stock control, and inspection etc. to
facilitate, the production or market distribution.
On the other hand, outbound logistics basically belongs to warehousing, packaging,
transportation of commodities belonging to the same business. In simple words it also
emphasizes on delivering effective services customers and distribution channels. It has also been
analysed that outbound logistics is mainly acknowledged as the outer movement of finished
goods from the company to its end user. Here, the main interaction simply takes place between
business association and the customers. It has been later analysed that execution of outbound
logistics activities can be effectively performed by setting up its different processes. The overall
process of outbound logistics depicts that it involves activities of storage of products or
commodity warehouse, taking orders from customers, dispatching of products and its final
delivery of products to the end user in appropriate manner. With reference to the case of Barbie
doll case, it can be said that logistics department of respective company here manages warehouse
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material of dolls and then dispatches and delivers products and services according to the order
received from the customers for the same product. Along with this, it can be said that by
delivering Barbie doll to its end user in timely manner the company. This would directly help
them out in satisfying maximum number of customers and converting them into the loyal
customers towards the same entity.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Tijssen, R., van de Klippe, W. and Yegros, A., 2019. Globalisation, localisation and glocalisation
of university-business research cooperation: general patterns and trends in the UK
university system.
Ye, M. and et. al., 2020. Corporate social responsibility “glocalisation”: Evidence from the
international construction business. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental
Management, 27(2), pp.655-669.
Stürner, J. and Bendel, P., 2019. The Two-Way ‘Glocalisation’of Human Rights or: How Cities
Become International Agents in Migration Governance. Peace Human Rights
Governance, 3(2).
Dvir, Y., Maxwell, C. and Yemini, M., 2019. “Glocalisation” doctrine in the Israeli Public
Education System: A contextual analysis of a policy-making process. education policy
analysis archives, 27, p.124.
Bašić, M., 2019, September. THE LINK BETWEEN INSTITUTIONAL FACILITATORS AND
GLOCALISATION: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF INNOVATION IN
TRANSITIONAL ECONOMIES. In 12th Annual Conference of the EuroMed Academy
of Business.
Puddle, D., 2019. Making the jump: Examining the glocalisation of parkour in Aotearoa New
Zealand (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Waikato).
Fowowe, M.A., 2019. Glocalisation and Sustainable Business Solutions: Business and
Environmental Sustainability. In Neoliberalism in the Tourism and Hospitality
Sector (pp. 53-82). IGI Global.
Ionita, D. and Mihaes, L., 2017. EUROPEAN COMPETITIONS-A TOOL FOR TEACHING
STUDENTS GLOBALISATION THROUGH GLOCALISATION. In International
Scientific Conference" Strategies XXI" (Vol. 3, p. 293). " Carol I" National Defence
University.
Gobo, G., 2016. Glocalization: a critical introduction.
Grigorescu, A. and Zaif, A., 2017. The concept of glocalization and its incorporation in global
brands’ marketing strategies. International Journal of Business and Management
Invention, 6(1), pp.70-74.
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