Globilisation is a good thing for entrepreneurs
A business that only offers products and services to people in a specific location may become the best in that area but can it expand? Does it offer 'scaleability'?
Having the best cake shop in your town is a good thing for the owners. They will ( if they follow the rules of business ) make a profit based on the population of the district. Their success is based on the size of the local market. Where can they go from there? Do they open a new store in the next suburb along? Can they afford to do that? Maybe a franchise will help them to take their cakes and pastries to the World but they will only earn royalties, not keep all of the profit.
To be truly successful in terms of reaching a global market, business people will need a product or service that is in universal demand. They must be in a field that does not need a physical presence in every population centre.
Examples of businesses that went from local to global include IBM, William Hill Online Sportsbook and News Corp.
IBM began in America making time-keeping systems, weighing scales, automatic meat slicers, coffee grinders, and punched card equipment. Today, IBM is a global powerhouse in commercial computing. It develops new products and reaches new markets around the World year after year.
William Hill has grown from a High Street betting shop to a global leader in the entertainment industry offering gaming and betting products and services. It constantly adds new betting products and online games to cater for an ever expanding customer base. William Hill is a prime example of a business offering a service that had a local 'High Street' customer base but was 'scaleable'. Unlike a local cake shop, William Hill is capable of scaling up to service everyone in the World from its widely distributed businesses centres that employ of 16,000 people.
William Hill has adopted change. It still has physical betting shops that are highly popular. The business went global with the invention of the Internet, high speed computers and fast download capable telecoms around the World.
William Hill constantly increases its market share with a stream of new gaming options and online games that provide betting options for people in almost every country. The business adapted to the change in its service offerings by boosting security, offering services in local languages, offering the world's best standards in customer service and linking to the best financial systems operating around the World.
Rupert Murdoch inherited a single newspaper in Adelaide. He improved the quality of the paper in terms of content and optimised the production system before launching the first national newspaper in Australia. He then took that business model to the World and News Corp is the result. News Corp went from Adelaide to the World.
The takeaway lessons from the roots of IBM, William Hill and News Corp are that to be a success, in an increasingly globalised market, entrepreneurs should choose to pursue enterprises that can attract customers from around the World from a central location or base.