Operations Management

Chapter 22 : Operations in Global Business Strategy

Significance of Globalization
Sources of global competitive advantage
Comparative advantages
Economies of scale
Proprietary product technology
Difficulties in managing globalization
Economic impediments
Managerial impediments
Institutional impediments
Trade-offs in globalization
Operations strategy changes necessary for globalization
Selection of markets
Product development and technology choice
Allocation of resources- Managing Globalization
Changing the organization's structure
Changing manager's attitude
Developing core competencies for global learning
Operations in Global Business Strategy
Management and Organization
Facilities
Capacity
Technology
Innovation
Integration
Workforce
Procedures Planning

Chapter Summary

Globalization refers to the process of integrating the economy of a country with that of the rest of the world. The pace of globalization has increased due to changing customer preferences, the opening up of various national economies, the setting up of international trade treaties, saturated local markets and so on.

There are several sources of advantage for global competition: comparative advantage, economies of scale, and proprietary product technology. Globalization is a complex process in which organizations have to deal with different cultures, business environments, government regulations, etc.

The various types of impediments to the process of globalization are economic, managerial and institutional impediments. To expand globally, organizations need to dramatically change their management approaches. In this chapter, we discussed the operations strategy changes necessary for globalization and the various approaches for managing globalization.

Since operations management plays a critical role in the overall business strategy of global organizations, it is imperative for operations managers to analyze the different opportunities and challenges present in different countries and develop strategies accordingly.