During World War II, Coca-Cola’s Founder, Robert Woodruff, vowed that any American in uniform should be able to get a coke for five cents wherever they were in the world. As a result, the company built bottling stations in Europe and the Pacific and when the war ended, the wartime plants were transformed into fully operational facilities. Thus, the ‘cocacolonisation’ of every country on the planet began in earnest.
Today, the world is fighting a different war, and there isn’t an industry that has not been impacted. With the world in lockdown, globalisation – meaning our entire system of free markets, trade, financial flows and movement of people upon which the global economy exists – is under significant threat.
“I think every industry will have to rethink their approach to globalisation and to running a business,” predicts Dr Mark van Rijmenam, Founder of data knowledge platform Datafloq and author of The Organisation of Tomorrow: How AI, blockchain and analytics turn your business into a data organisation.
“Before the virus, everyone knew that they had to do digital transformation, but they were still struggling or didn’t really feel the need for it. But now they see that they will have to, and they will have to prepare their business for a new world.”
While Coca-Cola leveraged World War II as a springboard to conquer the world, can we really expect similar stories to emerge after COVID-19? Won’t the fear of further disruption see businesses retreat to more regional and local business models in the future?
SOURCE LOCALLY, EXPAND GLOBALLY
This story is from the July 2020 edition of The CEO Magazine - ANZ.
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This story is from the July 2020 edition of The CEO Magazine - ANZ.
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