Strategies Globalization Regionalization Explain Strategy Effectively Give Examples Successful Companies Strategy

¶ … Globalization and Regionalization Globalization strategies are formed on a competitive advantage. A competitive advantage is defined as the manner in which companies distinguish themselves to establish a customer base and acquire a market share. A business achieves a competitive advantage by marketing its products or services in ways that enable it to outperform its rivals and connect with consumers. Absence of a competitive advantage is a recipe for a business to resort to marketing their services and products based exclusively on price strategy (Mucchielli, 2011).

A company may gain a competitive advantage through identifying attributes that appeal to a new market segment and designing a strategic approach to promote the attributes. Creating brand awareness, designing corporate recognition programs and highlighting product differentiation are among globalization methods with a direct tie to a competitive advantage, which results in continuous profitability (Rugman, 2010). Fortunately, global businesses like Apple are already using unlimited competitive advantage strategies to attract overseas markets. When talking about globalization strategies, it is mandatory to factor in the pioneering work of Michael Porter.

Porter has developed three generic strategies that are unique for businesses to attain a competitive advantage. They include differentiation, leadership, and focus. Although these approaches are adopted based on the business context, they tend to fulfill a distinctive core purpose (Fratianni, 2009). Looking at cost leadership strategy, it demands that a company must be the cheapest cost manufacturer for a certain quality level. On the other hand, the differentiation strategy calls that a service or product must have unique attributes lacking in the competitors' products.

The focus approach emphasizes on a narrow market niche to attain a competitive superiority via differentiation or cost leadership. Although Porter's approaches were not designed for the modern global market setting, they have proven to be borderless and timeless while remaining highly relevant. To survive in today's global marketplace, companies must regionalize their strategies based on legal, economic, political, and cultural conditions. Corporations such as Wal-Mart and Toyota have successfully used regionalization strategies to enhance profitability and growth. Regionalization prospects have been enhanced through increased cross-border integration.

Studies point that regionalized locations may attract economic growth and expand a region's economic activities. A region is defined in terms of economic, political, geography and cultural conditions (Higgott, 2010). Toyota is popular for its adoption and adaption of the Home Base Regionalization Strategy. With this strategy, Toyota maintains manufacturing and R&D in their country of origin. This approach tends to be effective when concentration economies outweigh economies of dispersion. A great part of the fortune 500 Corporation still abides by this strategy.

Even companies that have globally expanded adhered to the Home Base Strategy for a long time. For decades, Toyota has been serving its global customer base through direct export. Bayer did the same in Pharmaceuticals and GE in home appliances. This regional strategy has demonstrated to be extremely useful for time conscious products to reach the market as fast as possible (Rivas, 2009). However, this strategy has can reduce an organization's prospective growth and may put a company in trouble after a market matures or in case of uncertain economic conditions.

Angel a Company operating in Spanish Fashion industry faced a similar situation when the value of the dollar depreciated against the Euro. As A result, Angel's production cost inflated against their rivals who relayed on.