IN PRACTICE: GLOBAL SUCCESS STORIES

» To some extent Ford is a victim of its own extraordinary success.

Car manufacturing has developed from a cottage industry to
maturity over the last century, and the major markets of the
developed world have little room for growth.

» Although millions in the developing world would like to

purchase a car, they do not have the means to do so. In
Brazil, for instance, only 1 in 11 people owns a car. The need for
a good infrastructure, high-tech suppliers and skilled labor are
other major barriers to market growth in the short to medium
term.

» Cost cutting has become paramount. Rather than integrating

vertically, Ford and others have aggressively pursued mergers
and alliances during the 1990s. In a heavily regulated environ-
ment where the weakest firms will not remain independent
for long, Ford has chosen to concentrate on its core busi-
ness making cars and divested its parts division, Visteon. In
an attempt to eliminate duplication and cut costs, transnational
auto manufacturers like Ford are changing their relationships
with their parts suppliers, reducing their number, attempting to
collaborate more closely on product design and development
and outsourcing many processes.

» Ford may be a global company, but its strengths derive from its

US roots. Transnationalism brings huge headaches in the regu-
latory sphere, with every national market subject to different,
constantly changing rules. Ford's ``homologation'' design system
attempts to minimize the costs of conforming to a multitude of
standards across the globe.

NTT DOCOMO THE BATTLE FOR NEW GLOBAL
MARKETS

For decades the telecommunications industry was regarded as an
uneventful collection of state-controlled utilities. Deregulation and
the advent of the Internet and mobile telephony changed every-
thing today it is a ``hot'' sector with huge sums being risked by
a large number of private competitors worldwide. Mobile telephony