Press Release
Contact: Cassandra Cranston |
Phone: (919) 549-7500 |
International Business Experts Discuss Opportunities in Emerging Markets at Globalization 2008
A sell-out crowd of more than 325 gathered to discuss the global economy.
Research Triangle Park, N.C. February 18, 2008 – The message at the Globalization 2008 Conference (www.cednc.org/globalization/) was clear: getting the most from the global marketplace means looking at innovation differently, building local relationships, and avoiding assumptions. International business experts from Lenovo, Red Hat, Clintrials and others participated in the conference, hosted by the Council for Entrepreneurial Development on February 14, 2008.
“This conference is a collaborative bridge to the global economy and the channels in which you can thrive,” said Kent Christison, conference co-chair and partner in charge of the Raleigh and RTP offices of the law firm of Kennedy Covington. “I hope this is the first of many conferences to share ideas, visions and strategies on how to survive in a business world no longer defined by geographic boundaries.”
Global Innovation
Most of the discussion at the conference focused on emerging
markets in the global economy: chiefly India and China,
but also Brazil, Viet Nam and Latin America. “These emerging
markets should not be thought of just as low-cost labor
and manufacturing hubs anymore,” said featured speaker Deepak
Advani, chief marketing officer and senior vice president
of global e-commerce for Lenovo in RTP.
“Innovation is everywhere” he continued. “The key is to create hubs and leverage that innovation across cultures and continents.” That’s why Lenovo uses an R&D “triangle” with labs in the U.S., Japan and China. Advani estimates the company outspends its competitors by 2 to 20 percent on R&D.
Using the global marketplace as a source of ideas is the key to innovation, said Michael Chen, Raleigh-based Red Hat’s vice president of corporate marketing and former general manager of Red Hat China “It’s more than R&D for R&D’s sake. Stop selling what you have and start selling what the customer wants.”
Local Angle
But working across borders brings the challenge of different
languages, cultures, customs and economies. “Having people
you can trust, who really understand the different market
dynamics and who speak the local language and understand
the local culture is important,” Chen said. “Once you have
that, everything else will get sorted out.”
Kim Beer, product development manager for RTP-based RTI International’s global health technology group, agreed. “You must have local legal advice when setting up agreements. You have to have someone locally to be your legal representation.”
How do you find those local resources? “Ask companies that are already doing business there who they’ve been working with,” Beer said.
Bad Assumptions
A common mistake many large companies make is assuming that
emerging markets aren’t sophisticated. “Don’t assume that
if you’re selling through channel opportunities or resellers
that the local competition is behind you in terms of the
sophistication of product or packaging,” said Mark Rostick,
managing director of Intel Capital, the Santa Clara, Calif-based
silicon chipmaker’s investment arm. “They won’t be. There
are a lot of Asian markets, for instance, that are at least
a generation ahead of us with wireless technologies.”
Another dangerous assumption is that emerging markets should adapt to the Western way of doing business, particularly when it comes to intellectual property. “We have to adapt to them,” asserted Chris Price, president and CEO of LaamScience, Inc., the Raleigh developer of a coating that can be used to combat the spread of airborne viruses. “That’s what we should be doing – the burden’s on us. I’m interested in doing business now, not waiting until [the regulations] are sorted out. So we have no choice but to find a Chinese partner we trust and do some business.”
Final Analysis
“In 10 to 20 years, in order to compete locally, you’ll
need a global component to your business plan,” said Neil
Bagchi, corporate associate with the Raleigh law firm of
Kennedy Covington, and moderator of a panel on executing
global intellectual property strategies. “Now is the time
for middle-market and emerging companies to go global.”
Conference co-chair, Ted Abernathy, executive vice president of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, added: “Most of the growth in the global economy will come from countries like China and India. This conference is trying to be proactive about these global trends. It’s an opportunity to establish RTP as a global brand for entrepreneurs and investors.”
About CED
The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) is a private,
non-profit organization founded in 1984 to identify, enable
and promote high-growth, high-impact companies and accelerate
the region’s entrepreneurial culture. Headquartered in the
Research Triangle Park, CED is the oldest and largest entrepreneurial
support organization in the nation with more than 5,000
active members representing over 1,100 companies. CED provides
know-how, networking, mentoring and capital formation resources
to new and existing high-growth entrepreneurs through more
than 150 annual conferences, forums, workshops, and programs,
as well as publications and web-based resources. CED has
helped entrepreneurs, investors, service partners, academicians,
researchers and public policy makers in diverse emerging
industries and at all stages of development—from high-tech,
production-based organizations to service companies, and
from one-person start-ups to 1000-person businesses. www.cednc.org
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