Question 1)

National difference definitely plays a major role in international business and any business planning
to expand oversees should evaluate the national difference of the home country and the expansion
country. There are many frameworks that helps companies analyse the national difference such as:

PESTEL- It talks about the countries political, economical, social, technological, environmental and
legal system of a country.

Hofstede Graph and analysis- It helps companies know about the cultural difference between the
various countries that include six Hofstede’s cultural dimension, i.e., power distance, masculinity,
individualism, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and, indulgence.

CAGE- It tells about the cultural distance, administrative distance, geographic distance and economic
distance of the nations.

The two examples we will be talking about are:

1. KFC
2. Walmart

Success of KFC in China:

According to Hofstede Graph, China has a score of 20 on the individualism dimension, that means
China is more about “WE” rather than “I”.

KFC is very well known for its cultural adoption in the countries it is operating inn. KFC being a US
company, which is an individualistic society has adapted with the collectivism culture of China. To
appeal to the dining habits of Chinese people it has increased the size of the restaurant and in fact, it
twice the restaurant size of KFC in US. As Chinese people love to connect, socialize, have fun and
share while going out to the restaurants. Apart from this, the company has also localised there
menu, i.e., they have certain food item which are local cuisines of China and cannot be food in the
menu of any other country. KFC has also created the menus in the local language and have some of
the outlets that look and represent Chinese culture and its heritage.

Failure of Walmart in Germany:

Walmart has succeeded in many countries and have also failed in many countries. Talking about
Walmart in Germany it has failed because of not properly adopting to the legal and cultural system
of the society. The culture for labours in Walmart was not good, they very incentivised to track and
spy their co-workers, they were adviced to talk to customer in a flirty way and sometimes it became
too extreme and customers did feel very uncomfortable to come back to the stores. The Walmart
did not properly abide with the labour’s laws of the Germany.

Looking at the above two examples we understand that the national difference either drive a
company to a success and at the same time led to failure of the company in that country. Hence, it is
extremely important for the company to consider the factor of national differences.
Question 2)

Two trends presently affecting the global environment are:

1. Russia-Ukraine war
2. Self-Interest

Russia-Ukraine war:

The impact of Russia-Ukraine war is impacting the global economy as there nations were on of the
major exporter of the Grains and the war between them is hindering the supply of the grains
specially wheat and recently India has also banned the export of wheat to other nations. The impact
of these can be seen in real life, for example, in Singapore the price of wheat is thrice the price that
were before this shortage. It is also impacting the exports of the companies working in these
economies and also due to disruption in supply chain the impact can also be seen on the imports of
the businesses operating in Ukraine and Russia.

Self-Interest

Covid-19 had a huge impact on the global economy, one of the trend that can be seen in nations all
over is that the are trying to become more and more self-dependent or self sufficient because during
Covid the countries followed “Country first” policy and the benefit of this policy was ripped by the
wealthy nations. The disruption in supply chain, hindered the production of the goods and service,
unemployment were high. This is one of the bitter truth that the nations have learnt from the Covid
19 and in addition, in today uncertain environments it is very important for nations to be self
sufficient and prepare for the crisis and black swans.

Two short to medium term trends are:

1. Going local
2. Digitalisation

Going local

As the nations around the world are in crisis and are trying to recover for the impact of covid 19,
promoting local traders, businesses, good and services is one of the key factor that is helping the
nations to quickly get back to pre covid levels and also this will also be helping them in the long
term. This will improve the trade deficits of a nation.

Digitalisation

Digitalisation is increasing with a tremendous and will be one of the major force that will be driving
Industrialisation 4.0, with increasing technology and Digitalisation the economies all over the global
are becoming more and more integrated and it is helping improve the efficiency.
VUCA

VUCA is Volatility, Uncertainty , Complexity and Ambiguity)

The VUCA framework was created after the cold war.

The economies and the global environment is very Volatile, that means, things are rapidly changing
and unpredictable. Uncertainty, nothing is certain as the things are becoming more and more
unpredictable and Covid 19 is one of the example, war between Russia-Ukraine as no one every
thought or prepared for such a black swan event . Complexity, the global environment is becoming
more complex because economise wants to go local and at the same time they are the part of
globalisation. Ambiguity, the above factors gives rise to the ambiguity as nothing can be clearly sated
or understood about global trends.

International Business Managers will have to rethink the strategies because the VUCA would
demands for new skillset, new way of thinking and adaptability. Among these all the VUCA factors
these should have a clear vision, understanding, clarity and agility to be competitive in ever changing
environment. They need to be resilient, flexible and adaptable.

Brands like iTunes, Prime video, YouTube, vimeo and many more are considering the VUCA factor
and heavily invested in protecting them from any possible uncertainty.

During the crisis, there were several industries that were benefited by these events. During covid
business started shifting there main production units into manufacturing of Covid-19 related goods
for example masks, ppe kit etc and the medical and healthcare industry saw a sudden boom in
demand. Covid 19 benefitted the business and business managers that were able to adopt with the
current demand and necessities of the consumers. Another example could be, businesses like
Zomato, grab, uber as they used to deliver the product to the door step and during covid people
were trying to minimize there outside contact.

Manager should rethink the strategies because these uncertainties helps understand the importance
of being flexible and adapt with the changing environment to be ahead of the competitors.

“JUST IN TIME to JUST IN CASE”

The experiences of these events definitely comes with the learnings and help us better prepare for
the future.

These events had a major impact on supply chain as the economies all over the globe are more and
more integrated and any hindrances in any part of the supply chain can have a huge impact on the
business over the world. During Covid 19 garment industry was one of the worst hit industries as
there multi source and multiple nations involved for procuring raw material to producing finised
goods. The productions of the products were impacted and the global shortage of semiconductors
further impacted the production of the goods and services. The business environment was
dependent on the availability of the material not on the demand of goods or services.

Question 3)
E-globalisation is accelerating:

The globalisation is slowing but the e-globalisation is increasing because the pace at which the
technological change is happening in this decade was never seen before. Technology, digitalisation,
metaverse, machine learning and artificial intelligence are the drives of next industrial revolution. In
long term this will also be driving force for the increasing globalisation. From raw material to
finished good technology can make every process efficient and help businesses rip the maximum
profit. India is on of the leading exporter of IT services. Technological transfer between the nations
has helped them easily do the business as information can be quickly shared. It also improve the
skills and the employment status of the business as anyone can easily learn, interact with the people
and experts from different nations. E-globalisation is increasing dependence and integration of
economies.