QUESTION 3: What do you see as the

QUESTION 3: What do you see as the main organizational problems that are likely to be associated with implementation of a transnational strategy?

ANSWER 3: This is a student judgment question. Implementation difficulties include communication issues, trust issues, multiple roles, flexibility and culture issues, among many others. For example, with GM, some European operations may need to collaborate with operations in Latin America. Actions related to such a loss of autonomy might function as a hurdle to implementation.

QUESTION 4: Reread the Management Focus, Vodafone in Japan, then answer the following questions:
• Why do you think that Vodafone was pursuing a global standardization strategy?
• How did it hope that this strategy would boost profitability and profit growth?
• Why did the strategy not work in Japan?
• In retrospect, what should Vodafone have done differently?

ANSWER 4: Vodafone’s vision was to build a global brand using a phone that would work anywhere in the world. To achieve that vision, the company offered consumers a standardized product with the same technology regardless of where they were located. In theory, by offering the same basic product everywhere, Vodafone would not only capitalize on a brand name, it would also capitalize on a streamlined production process. However, the company failed to recognize that consumers in different locations values different features. In Japan, the company was selling primarily to younger people who did not travel much, and did not value the global portability of the company’s phones. Instead, Japanese consumers were more interested in other features like games and cameras. In retrospect, Vodafone probably should have paid more attention to local preferences. The company delayed introduction of phones using 3G technology that would allow users to watch video clips and teleconference because it wanted to launch the technology only when it had a phone that would work inside and outside Japan.