When I was writing my application for a summer camp, there was a question about the meaning of “think globally and act locally.” It is well known as a famous business philosophy related to entrepreneurship. Big brands know that they have to speak to people locally with many different implications and applications while maintaining global thinking at the corporate level. This business philosophy is well proven, and many experts recommend embracing this philosophy to any brand, company, or individual that aims for globalization. Of course, everybody has different perspectives of explaining things, but I want to describe the general definition and examples that are now used in current society. I hope you can learn about this principle from this blog and add your own perspectives to it.
“Think globally” means thriving the global standards for products and services, and “act locally” means providing products and services at the local level and caring for various communities’ different implications and applications. This is an act solution-oriented principle, which means that I need to foresee how global impacts may have certain actions. For example, they pursue global issues like environmental issues, and they make policies related to environmental concerns to make global impacts, but then they start with local areas. Like, reducing the carbon footprint is a global issue, but the steps taken are implemented locally. The company that aims the philosophy of thinking global and acting locally resulted in an environmental issue. Panasonic moved its North America headquarters to a prime location from a suburban area and pursued the principle of “acting locally.” This resulted in reducing carbon footprints which is a global concern. Johnson & Johnson provides another “think globally, act locally” example. To achieve their global aim to reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2020, in their Sweden site, they use electricity or fuel that doesn’t contribute carbon emissions to the atmosphere.
The most famous fast-food brand McDonald’s, is a company that has one of the leading success stories with “think globally and act locally” principles. McDonald’s is a food-chain company that prioritizes standardization of the whole food-preparing process. When it was first merchandised within the States, it managed to ensure one standard quality. With the internationally high demand, when expanding through Europe, the Middle East and Asia, some hits in States were missed in Asian markets. Even though the processes of burgers, quality and products were the same, there was still a problem related to identity. At this point, the philosophy of “act local” helped McDonald’s to succeed, especially in the Asian region. South Asian cuisine was different than that of States or Europe, so they had to create flavours that could speak to locals. Afterwards, they included some local spices and excluded some global ones. This boosted their sales and demonstrated the importance of localization.