“In a world with just one time zone (“Now”), business must source materials, innovation, talent, logistics, infrastructure and production wherever they are best available. And we must sell wherever profitable markets exist, anywhere in the world. In today’s global economy, companies must worldsource.”
Forbes.com has a piece by Bill Amelio today on “Worldsourcing” — this is an interesting thesis I heard expressed at McKinsey in the Global Strategy Practice. We were working on a book about financial reforms in emerging markets driven by the globalization of credit and the accompanying export of stringent regulatory regimes by the dominant market economies. IE — if you want to borrow money in Brazil, you better be prepared to deliver a financial statement acceptable under Sarbanes Oxley. Amelio’s argument — admittedly China centric as Lenovo was founded in China, and China is taking a pasting for product quality control — is that the best way to bring FDA types of standards to an emerging market is to engage in that market and source product from it.
Hence, who is better prepared to kick a foreign supplier into line than a buyer operating under a strictest quality regulations? By default, that exports those regulations into the foreign domain.