Challenges for Global eBusinesses
The irreversible process of globalization and the Internet connecting all continents, have brought all areas of the world closer together. As a result opportunities for B2C and B2B eCommerce are no longer restrained by languages or borders. Leading research firms arrive to various growth rate predictions, but one trend is very clear: non-English speaking Internet audiences today comprise a majority.
63% of worldwide Internet users are from outside North America.
- eMarketer, 2000
Web globalization is particularly difficult because it requires expertise in two distinct areas: e-business and global communications. Many young, Web-savvy companies have pioneered dynamic e-business strategies, but most of them conduct business in a single locale and language. On the other hand, a great number of established businesses are reinforcing their global "brick-and-mortar" operations with new e-business strategies. For both types of organizations, it is critically important to leverage existing expertise without underestimating the unique challenges of Web globalization.
Globalization is not just another Web initiative
Successful dot-comers know that the Web is the domain of the never-satisfied customer and the fierce competitor. Market forces shift suddenly due to new entrants, new technologies and new rules. Nimble new competitors, energized by these new economic realities, can create better, cheaper value propositions more quickly-and grab market share.
For "dot-com" pioneers, market leadership is fueled by innovation and responsiveness to customer requirements. Responding effectively to customers can be more difficult when the company's customers are distributed across a variety of locations and languages. The technical, legal and cultural requirements of a global business can challenge the pace of a firm's innovation. To meet this challenge, firms address global issues in every part of the Web operation, rather than treating globalization as an isolated stage in the process.
Globalization Issues Faced by Global e-Business Pioneers
Organizational issues
- How will the efforts of globally distributed content contributors be coordinated?
- How will dynamically changing information be managed?
- How will diverse strategies and objectives be reconciled?
Technical issues
- Will search engines function properly in a different character set?
- Do the Web forms accept input from a non-ASCII computer?
- Do e-commerce databases index data by non-alphabetical fields?
Cultural and social factors
- Can Japanese customers pick up deliveries at a local store?
- Are Asian and Indian customers greeted by their surnames only?
- Are icons (house, shopping cart, check mark, etc.) appropriate for all locales?
Legal issues
- Will a product sweepstakes be illegal in Sweden?
- Is it illegal to require the French to read content written in English?
- What data can the company collect about its customers in the European Union?
Global "best practices"
- What forms of payment are offered to customers who don't use credit cards?
- Can company staff respond to e-mail in every language in which the site appears?
- Are sites updated synchronously with each other, and with respect to local operations?
Managing globalization on the Web is especially difficult
Considering the numerous challenges of Web globalization, it is not surprising that many organizations fail in their first attempts to build a sustainable global Web operation A key to overcoming these challenges is to understand the many ways in which the Web presents unique challenges and to view the fundamental task not as the development of another "initiative" (a set of localized Web sites) but as the establishment of a "process" (an evolving global organization) that can produce and maintain Web content.
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