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Going Global
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Doing business
overseas can be just a matter of knowing how.
By William Poe
According to Vince Volpe, there are two types of businesses: those
that are doing business globally, and those that aren’t but should
be.
“And, if your company has a web site, it already has a global presence,
but may not be capitalizing on it,” Volpe says.
Larry Taylor adds that many St. Louis companies have the technology,
the products and the services to succeed in foreign markets. These
businesses just need the will, he says.
Volpe and Taylor should know. They are the personification of the
globalization of markets. They’ve done it, and now they are helping
others do it, too.
As Volpe says, “It’s now a global business environment. Everyone
everywhere wants everything.”
Above:
Vince Volpe, Arbiris Consulting
Volpe heads Arbiris Consulting, which provides business development
services for organizations that are establishing or expanding a
global presence. Taylor directs Aziotics, LLC, which assists companies
that are selling to or sourcing from Asian markets. Both men know
their stuff.
Barry-Wehmiller, a St. Louis-based international packaging automation
company, provided Volpe’s first foray into the seas of international
business. He was working with the company’s vice president of Latin
American sales when he got his first lesson in international business:
“They don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Mexico.”
Volpe learned that first small lesson and many others as he went
on to develop a global licensing program for the establishment of
healthcare services business units around the world, helped United
Kingdom and South African business units of U.S. companies develop
business plans, advised a remittance services provider on the structuring
of in-country business entities, and more.
Before founding Arbiris, Volpe was chief executive officer of PPC
International, a global behavioral health company, where he established
the operational, marketing and legal framework for the company’s
worldwide service network and implemented a global licensing program.
Along the way, he also picked up a CPA credential, earned a law
degree and practiced law, and headed KPMG’s mergers and acquisitions
group in St. Louis.
Taylor’s international experience began innocently enough when he
was born in Japan to U.S.-based missionary parents who were forced
to flee their post in Korea with the outbreak of the Korean War.
After college in the U.S., Taylor returned to Asia in the 1970s
as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malaysia and a credit officer for
that country’s national agricultural bank. Then it was on to Singapore
and other Asian states where he set up various marketing and manufacturing
operations, first for Union Carbide and then for Monsanto. The latter
eventually moved him to St. Louis to oversee global product management
and commercialization of new technologies, including those in the
emerging life sciences.
After leaving Monsanto in 1997, Taylor founded Aziotics “to help
others get established or grow in Asian markets” and to help Asian
and Pacific Rim companies do business in the U.S. One of his clients,
not surprisingly, has been Monsanto. Others include Unitica Ltd.
(Japan), Agro-Manunggai (Indonesia), McKinsey (Australia), Numedloc
(U.S.), and Doane Agricultural Services Co. (U.S.)
Illustrating the sometimes-circuitous world of business, Taylor
says his first client “was a New Zealand national working for an
Australian branch of an American corporation looking for business
in Indonesia, and here I was supporting them from Clayton.” For
U.S. companies, Aziotics has also helped establish a genomics repository
in Japan, developed Asian market entry strategies for a cotton seed
producer, studied the feasibility of an agricultural cable television
channel in
China, and evaluated the market for train signal systems in southeast
Asia. For Asian companies, Aziotics developed a strategy for a Malaysian
company to enter the U.S. health snack food market, investigated
U.S. market entry options for a New Zealand firm’s human resource
services, and helped a Chinese plastics manufacturer export products
to the states.
Both Volpe and Taylor say that globalization requires a general
understanding of local customs, not to mention specialized knowledge
of organizational structure, contracts and documents to be employed,
credit and payment terms and mechanisms, dispute resolution, customs
classifications, taxes, insurance, and a review of pertinent trade
treaties.
“Usually, we find two types of globalists in the U.S.,” Volpe says.
“You have the reluctant globalist, who argues against it at every
turn, and the cowboy globalist who says, ‘I’ve got a passport and
a plane ticket and I’m going over there to start talking turkey
with some people. They both have some things to learn.”
The reluctant globalist, Volpe says, needs to learn that failing
to capitalize on a global opportunity can be deadly.
“In some businesses, such as personal computers or pharmaceuticals,
you just have to think globally, or you are immediately marginalized
and soon out of the game,” Volpe explains. “For some industries,
that’s been obvious for some time. Today, because of advances in
telecommunications, start-ups in most any field need to be looking
overseas. If you aren’t, you probably don’t have a credible business
plan.”
The cowboy globalist, Volpe adds, needs to know “that there are
better ways to begin beyond jumping on an airplane with an offer
in your hand. Overseas, the emphasis often is, not on making the
deal, but on building a relationship.” Three fundamentals to undertaking
business in foreign markets, Taylor says, are:
1) gathering the information needed to determine the feasibility
of market entry
2) developing a business model that works for the host company and
the local foreign market
3) identifying the human resources who can operate the business
and manage cross-culturally.
Through a core staff in St. Louis and a network of trusted associates
elsewhere, Taylor says he has “the ability to deliver a network
of business development professionals across Asia and elsewhere.
We offer efficient and effective global business solutions for clients
who don’t have the time or the management” to undertake the work
themselves. Aziotics also provides staff with a wide range of Asian
language skills, has detailed international gift giving protocols
and has built a training course on international communications.
Above:
Lawrence R. Taylor, director of Aziotics, LLC
Taylor says he never advises clients looking for global reach “to
pick up a phone book and try to be their own general contractors.”
U.S. companies, he adds, need to know how foreign business interests
“will be making their decisions, why they do it that way and what
Americans can do to maximize the efficiency of getting the conclusion
you want.”
There is so substitute for knowledge, Volpe says, and a little can
go a long way.
“Expectations for Americans doing business overseas are low,” Volpe
says. “You can really impress your host by showing that you have
some sense of the history of his city and country. And sometimes
the quickest way to kill a deal is through the voluminous legal
documents and contracts we Americans are so accustomed to. A handshake
agreement that would get an American fired is often the basis of
an agreement overseas. There can be resistance to planning and systematizing
everything, yet you have to be careful to stick with business basics.”
Volpe and Taylor agree that most businesses can and should go global
in a phased fashion.
“Maybe start with a licensing agreement or a representative relationship
with a foreign entity, not an equity stake,” Volpe advises.
“Maximize local insight,” Taylor adds.
And St. Louis companies should not be shy about sailing into international
waters, Volpe and Taylor say.
“St. Louis is very fertile ground for being a center for global
business,” Volpe says. ““We have world-class companies and universities
and lots of talent. And a lot of people overseas are more comfortable
dealing with someone from a city our size, unlike New York or Chicago.
We have a history of getting involved in the rest of the world,
and people around the world know St. Louis.”
“I believe St. Louis is on the verge of an international business
explosion,” Taylor adds. “We have a vast amount of technology and
marketable products and services, and those providers will be much
better off long-term if they can identify and establish strategically
important international markets.”
Volpe and Taylor are ready to help.
William V. Poe is principal of Poe Communications, a St. Louis
advertising and marketing communications firm.
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