Reassessing global marketing strategy

Rapid and dramatic changes in the global landscape have profound implications for marketing strategy. This chapter explores four key areas that impact global marketing strategy. The most fundamental change is a shift in emphasis from developed markets to those in emerging market economies. A related change is the increasing cultural diversity and heterogeneity in markets throughout the world. Third, marketers must develop mechanisms to transfer skills and learning from one market to others. Finally, the notion of configural advantage – that is, leveraging the geographic configuration of dispersed assets, capabilities and resources to compete more effectively in world markets – is proposed as a way to develop successful marketing strategies for the 21st century.