Born Global officially launched today!!!

After first thinking about writing the book in December 2008, today marks the official launch of my new book “Born Global – Successful global expansion by those who’ve done it”.

Buy it, read it and tell me what you think.  Also review it on Amazon.co.uk so others know too. 3,000 copies have been printed in the first edition so I need all the help I can get to achieve a second edition.

More information at www.bornglobal.net.

 

A new born global – Quiet Riots

Last night I attended the soft launch of a new company called Quiet Riots (www.quietriots.com).  This innovative new company aims to provide the organizing infrastructure for people to aggregate around issues that they have with both commercial or governmental organizations.  The feeling being that people are often frustrated but unable to do anything about it yet senior management of most organizations are wholly commited to great customer service.  This platform aims to expose to senior management the real issues that their customers face thereby enabling change to happen much more quickly.

What’s exciting about the company is that while the prototype launch is UK centric, the ambition of the company is to launch in as many countries as possible as quickly as possible.  I think we are witnessing a born global in the making.  If you’re reading this from around the world, I urge you to get involved in Quiet Riots – perhaps become a volunteer to help localize it for your country.

BRIC + US Institute of Directors Conference – October 20, 2009

Last week I chaired the afternoon session of the BRIC + US conference held at the Institute of Directors in London (Hot Spots in a Cold World).

During the day, each of Brazil, Russia, India, China and US were given the opportunity to present why their countries represented significant market opportunities for companies looking to set up in their respective countries. And each of the speakers gave a fantastic picture demonstrating in clear terms why companies of all sizes should consider expansion into these countries. It never ceases to amaze me how little knowledge there is in OECD countries about the high growth emerging economies in particular so let me gave you a few of the numbers that were mentioned:

• In China, there are 274 cities with populations of greater than 1 million people and over the next 20 years, some 350 million additional people will relocate from the countryside to cities
• Russia aims to become a top 5 global economy by 2020 – just 11 years from now
• India is committed to sustainable growth of at least 6-7% per annum leading to it becoming a top 3 nation by 2050
• 47% of Brazil’s energy already comes from renewable sources making it a global leader in the field
• The population of the US will reach 400m by 2040 making it the 3rd most populous country on Earth after China and India

The message from the conference was clear, you cannot simply think in domestic terms, if you really want your business to succeed, you need to take an international perspective.

Happy Diwali

Interesting event this week occurred as a UK accounting company with British founders sent me a Happy Diwali greeting. Further proof that the world is indeed changing. Can you imagine that happening 10 years ago? Far from being worried about cultural differences, smart companies are beginning to realise that the differences are small, they just need to be slightly more aware to stand out from the crowd.

A real story from the front line

Picture the setting. It was last Friday 2nd October and I was on the 32nd floor of a building in the heart of London overlooking the entire city. I was catching up with the two co-founders (Christian Steiner and Jason Devenney) of Siondo, the winners of the pitch contest at the Bizspark event in London earlier that week. Christian is based in Germany, Jason is from Ireland but based in London. Between them they have created a SaaS product that is distributed around the world including the US, China and India. Also with us was Nicola Morgan, an account manager at Quickstart Global.

There was a particular moment that struck me during our meeting. Nicola and Christian were talking and then remarked at how quiet the day had been for them because both India and China had national holidays that day. Amazing hey, if you need proof that globalization is with us then look no further than these two people. Both working in young companies that don’t worry at all about working with people around the world and think that it is completely normal.

I remain amazed that I still meet people who can’t believe young companies can be global from the outset. They should open their minds and learn from people like Christian and Nicola.

Great day at BizSpark

I had a great day yesterday at the Microsoft BizSpark Summit in London. It was energising to talk to so many entrepreneurs with great ideas. I was part of a judging panel who chose one of the BizSpark companies from a pitch. The winner was Siondo , who currently provide an ERP SaaS solution aimed at SME’s. The company has a great outlook and as part of their prize will be provided with a number of developers by Quickstart Global who will work with them to further develop their product range. They are a fantastic example of a small organisation thinking globally from the start, identifying growing markets and providing solutions that will win them a big market share. I look forward to working with them.

We’re a global company, wherever we go, we are local heroes

I recently heard Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify use these words at a recent conference I attended and they had a particular resonance to the situation I find myself in at Quickstart Global.

He said “In Spain, we’re a Spanish start up, in France, we’re a French start up”. I must say, I found his words inspiring. He continued “I am from Sweden and employ people from around the world so it’s hard to say which country the Spotify is from”.

I find myself stumbling and unfortunately not being as eloquent when somebody asks where I’m based. My answer is I’m based wherever I am at the time. Wherever my travels take me, I seem to be able to carry on working, thanks partly to the technology which I can easily carry around with me.

The two co-founders of Quickstart Global are based in San Francisco and London respectively. Our first employees were in India, and we now have 600 staff working over 4 continents so how would you answer the question “Where are you based?” if you were me?

Spotify have created something so unique and cool that countries want to adopt it as their own. I think our trick, and the trick of others with global aspirations is to try and replicate what Spotify have done and have each host country adopt us as their own.

I mentioned in my previous blog that my book “Born Global” is due to be published early next month, the link to preorder is here.

The new realities

Two things caught my attention yesterday.

Firstly an article by Jane Simms in the September issue of Director magazine headlined “Bosses in denial over a volatile new world”. The article discusses that a post recession world will not look anything like the pre-recession world and so those looking to a return to the status quo are likely to be disappointed. I couldn’t agree more.

Secondly, a news report on the BBC discussed the volume of graduates in the UK versus other economies. Basically, 39% of students go on to earn a degree whereas India is targetting 30% of a MUCH bigger number of students by 2020.

The world is indeed changing very rapidly.

Incidentally, came across a newer edition of Shift Happens on YouTube. Well worth a look

Finally, my new book, Born Global is out early October. If you’re interested, it can be pre-ordered by following the link.

Come on people, read “The World Is Flat”!

I presented at a Microsoft conference yesterday. The audience was about a hundred UK based systems integrators. During the presentation, I asked for a show of hands to indicate how many people had read “The World Is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. To my amazement, only 3 or 4 people said they had. As this is pretty much the bible of the new globalized world that we live in, it seems to me that everyone with any interest in what’s going on in the world around them and how things might personally affect them, should really read this book. Links to purchase below:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Get your head out of the sand people, this stuff affects almost all white collar professionals. You need to understand it if you are going to take control of your own destiny.

Doing business – World Bank Report

The latest annual doing business report covering June 2008 to May 2009 was launched by the World Bank on August 9, 2009. The report ranks countries against the ease of doing business rating 10 criteria from starting a business to employing workers to enforcing contracts to closing a business.

Predictably, the top 5 are the same as always: Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong/China, United States and United Kingdom but there were some big surprises for me further down the list. For example, Georgia which despite its troubles, rose 5 places on the previous year to number 11 (ahead of Finland in 16th place and Sweden at 18th). Or even Saudi Arabia at number 13 ahead of France (31st), Germany (25th) and Switzerland (21st). The top reformer, up a massive 76 places from 147th to 67th was Rwanda.

Yet if you asked the average entrepreneur where it was easier, they would probably state other developed economies, yet the facts show that this is not always the case.

It all goes to show, the world is changing very quickly, opportunities are out there for those that do not have a historically influenced approach and instead view options based on the here and now rather than what has happened before. The list can be found at http://www.doingbusiness.org/EconomyRankings/