| Seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day hundreds of millions of people around the world cross national borders – often without knowing that they have done anything unusual. This community of nonchalant cosmopolites scours the Internet for the ideas, products, and relationships that they might not be able to find easily – if at all – where they live. Their transnational quest confounds legislators and cultural purists who don't know what to make of this Web-based globalization phenomenon that threatens to make their geographic, political, economic, and cultural boundaries almost meaningless. It places new burdens on companies suddenly confronted with inquiries and potential sales from far-off places.
This borderless community comprises a virtual Eighth Continent that will soon reach a population of a billion inhabitants. It exists wherever a computer, mobile phone, set-top box, or personal organizer touches the Internet. Until the Web pulled together this huge electronic society, its denizens were unreachable without massive investment in local staff and infrastructure in each and every country where a firm wanted to do business.
Business Without Borders is the definitive how-to guide for executives and marketing professionals ready to take on this global market. The emphasis throughout is on the nuts-and-bolts issues marketers and their support staff must master in order to launch a successful global initiative – from selling ideas to a budgetary committee or board of directors; deciding on which countries or cultures to enter; finding and working with translation and localization specialists; to measuring the ROI of global Web marketing efforts. It covers all the practical bases clearly, succinctly, and thoroughly.
A top consultant specializing in Internet-based globalization, Don DePalma draws upon his experiences and those of practitioners at Eastman Chemical, Cemex, Travelocity, Ducati, Lands’ End, Procter & Gamble, and other market leaders to uncover, document, and global business best practices. |
