World Monitor Magazine June #3 | Page 134

additional content We see senior executives at larger companies in developed markets and even in the growth markets themselves grappling with the best ways to deploy their capabilities in these diverse, unpredictable markets. But the executives in corporate headquarters from Boston to Beijing have an evolving role to play in adapting capabilities to conditions. No one can assume that a last-mile delivery strategy that works in India will automatically work in Brazil, but headquarters can be a value-added player in identifying the best practices in one market so that the company can adapt the strategy to other growth markets. Of course, that means headquarters executives have to be strategists themselves, and spend many hours flying around the globe. Unilever is a company that has been able to cross-share lessons and best practices across different parts of the world. Its pioneering Shakti initiative in India, which trained and employed rural 128 world monitor women as sales agents, was adapted to other global markets including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Egypt. When Unilever introduced audio entertainment with product advertisements on mobile phones in rural India, the campaign successfully pushed sales of its detergent product, so it is now planning to run similar — though culturally adapted — mobile ad campaigns in Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as several African countries. Far-flung field office managers aren’t in a position to coordinate such projects, but headquarters can take the lessons of individual business units and devise a strategy for exporting innovative projects and efficient processes from one market to another. And as the world’s growth engines speed up their pace, more and more of the strategies that work in maturing markets will also be adaptable to developed economies. Author Profile: • David Wijeratne is a managing director with PwC Singapore. He leads PwC’s Growth Markets Centre, a team of experts in Singapore gathered from across PwC’s global network to assist companies with successful entry and profitable expansion in emerging markets. • Gagan Oberoi, a manager with PwC Singapore, is a specialist in industrial products at PwC’s Growth Market Centre. He previously worked in India with Strategy&, PwC's strategy consulting business, with industrial manufacturing and aerospace and defense clients. • Shashank Tripathi, is a partner with PwC India. He leads the Strategy& practice in Mumbai, where he works with the team of experts at PwC’s Growth Markets Centre, specializing in growth strategies for the industrial products and aerospace and defense industries. based on Strategy & Reference: www.strategyand.pwc.com