Use transnational teams to globalize your company

In 1985, Fuji-Xerox sent 15 of its most experi¬enced Tokyo engineers to a Xerox Corporation facility in Webster, New York For the next five years, the Japanese engineers worked with a group of American engineers to develop the “world copier”—a huge success in the global marketplace. In 1991, Eastman Kodak formed a team to launch its latest consumer product, the photo CD. That group of experts, based in London, developed a strategy for the simultaneous introduction of the photo CD in several European countries. The photo CD has been Kodak’s most successful multicountry product introduction in this decade. At IBM-Latin America in 1990, a group of managers and technical specialists formed their own team to market, sell, and distribute personal computers in 11 Latin American countries. It took the team leader about a year to convince his boss that the team should be formally recognized and allowed to operate as an autonomous business unit. The team now has the authority to hurdle any bureaucratic barrier that gets in its way.