Going global is necessary because firstly, TNMC wants to reap economies of scale and scope, and having their media product extend to the largest possible consumer group would achieve his agenda. Secondly, as mentioned in the Gershon reading, it is a kind of Darwinism – they either grow big by going global, or eventually be taken over by another TNMC. There are many other reasons we covered, such as to get hold of resources, to increase their production and distribution efficiencies and even empire building.
The need to go global has been clearly established, but how can they do so? I will say there is no one size fits all strategy. As we have clearly discussed in the case of Blizzard in China, governmental regulations and gaming culture was the factor affecting their success. A proposed solution was to wait for the local companies to lobby with the government, or develop guanxi with the government, seeing as public relations with governmental authorities can make or break a business when it comes to China. But had this happened in another country, say Singapore, the same solution of guanxi would not have worked.
The best advice for TNMCs would be to think globally, act locally when they are coming up with a strategy. Before entering a market, TNMCs should have done enough environmental scanning, not only to access risk, but to help come up with their strategy. Each market is unique and thus should have a different strategy. Factors TNMC should consider should be consumer taste, consumer behavior, societal culture, governmental regulations and supply/distribution chains.
An example - Korean band Wonder Girls have tried to reach out to a global audience by having incorporate members with other nationalities (eg. Thailand) to reach out to other markets. That is an example of acting locally while going global. To add on to that, Wonder girls, a Korean band which has now gained global recognition, chose to incorporate English lyrics in their music. In this way, they considered consumers’ taste and managed to reach out to the Western markets. Also, they chose to enter the genre of pop, instead of rock or indie, which was the most mainstream musical genre in society today. That explains understanding of societal culture.
Google’s withdrawal from China would be apt to illustrate my point. Google did not understand that China, which is a post-communist society and is still extremely authoritarian, took censorship very seriously and its disregard of the China authorities and government would not hold up.
The TNMC global strategy has to be reviewed from time to time, and can change, seeing as how market situations and technological environments are ever changing. I am sure that before Grokster, Napster and sharing of MP3s began, Sony’s global strategy was to establish presence in as many lucrative markets such as Asia as possible. However, with the rise of MP3 file sharing, Sony had to think of a strategy to profit from MP3 sales, like coming up with it’s very own online store, as well as selling electronics such as MP3 players to gain synergy, which is often easy for TNMCs given the wide range of industries they have a stake in.
