By the thinkBIG Team
In previous articles I have discussed the Next Online Giant and the Perfect Business. In this article I discuss the challenges in giving global enterprises a local flavour.
There’s something comforting about familiarity.
For example whenever I travel, there are some things that are new and different (which is great, because that’s why I travel), and some things that are pleasantly familiar. It might be something as simple as a Starbucks, a restaurant chain, or a hotel chain. With many global brands and franchises, it doesn’t matter where you are; it still feels local and familiar, so much so that once you are inside you can easily feel right at home. Its human nature to like familiar things, we feel more secure and safe.
With travel being so easy these days, and because business is done all over the world, it’s important for some things to be the same, where ever you go. It just makes things that bit easier. Having to re-learn something on a local level, can really slow you down.
On the other hand, everybody in the world likes THEIR local feel and flavour. After all that’s why they live there. If they didn’t like it they would move somewhere else and look for a new “local” that they liked better.
History has shown that businesses that succeed on a global scale are those that manage to blend into the local scene, they are familiar, whilst maintaining a global strength and presence. These two objectives on the surface appear at odds with each other. The goal is to have a local feel, but at the same time provide all the security, strength and certainty that comes with being global.
If it’s an online business, it’s even harder. How do you appear local wherever you are, but at the same time be everywhere in the world? In other words, how does a global player have thousands of faces that appear local no matter where you are in the world? Not that easy to pull off !
Imagine that you are sitting in your own house looking out the window. The first and closest things you see are the most familiar, in other words the most local. You see your neighbours and friends’ house, your favourite café and shops etc. The further you look the less local things become. If you could see for hundreds or thousands of kilometres then you would be looking at global stuff, but through your familiar window, the one that you know and love.
Now, let’s take that experience and translate it into an online experience. Imagine doing all your online business through a local portal with local information, but at the same time allowed you to see and access all of the business information in the world. A global platform that is always viewed from your local perspective.
Imagine if that platform always knew where you were and automatically centred itself around you, giving you a birds eye view of your neighbourhood, but at the click of a button showed you every available offer, from any where in the world. Always Local, with access to Global.
Research shows that around 70% of online search leads to an offline purchase somewhere locally. Platforms that facilitate this process and make it faster, easier and smarter are going to be the ones that not only succeed in the future, but will dominate the landscape.
Likewise, people and businesses that affiliate themselves with these kinds of platforms will find their own fortunes improving too. It’s great to stand alone and be successful, but there is also strength in numbers. Imagine thousands of people from around the world tailoring their search to their local area, and yet be able to search globally at the same time? That is a powerful marketing model. A search platform to the world that lets you embed it with your own local content. In other words, letting you see the world through your own window rather than someone elses.
When a system such as this launches, and it will soon, it will literally change the way the world does business.
Are you ready for the change? Fortune favours the brave, and riches go to those who recognise and seize the moment.
