Operating in an international environment adds several complications to MIS. Technical difficulties include problems created by differing standards and complications that arise because of transferring data over long distances. However, cultural differences and different legal environments can cause even more problems. Techniques such as marketing systems and inventory methods that work well in the United States will usually have to be changed to support the variations in other nations. Listen to the head of marketing (Toni) discuss strategy with one of her department managers (Millie) and Dobbs, the MIS manager assigned to the project.
| Millie: | The way I see it, we should set one marketing plan and use it across all the markets. Besides cutting costs, I don’t think there’s much difference between the markets anyway. |
| Dobbs: | Oh come on, Millie. We’ll have to translate all of the promos and the packaging anyway. I don’t see where it’ll cut costs. |
| Millie: | Well, Dobbs, for starters, it’ll cut down on the number of meetings we need. More importantly, a single focus cuts down on the production diversity. For example, if we choose to focus on quality in all markets, we can limit the number of options and colors and concentrate on the base set. Plus, it’ll simplify the data we need. By collecting the same data from each market, it will be easier to collect data and to perform the marketing analyses. |
| Toni: | Speaking of marketing data, could we get back on track? We need to identify the data you want to collect. For starters, we’ll need to set up focus groups in each major city. Then track initial sales by store, along with our competition. To select initial markets, we’ll also need to get geographic-based consumer data such as incomes, spending and population by region. |
| Dobbs: | Whoa. Slow down. Sure, that’s the way we’ve worked in the United States, but I think we’re going to have trouble in Europe. |
| Millie: | How so? I don’t see where it’ll be much different. Overall income distributions and basic economic indicators are about the same. |
| Dobbs: | I’m not worried about the marketing differences right now—just the data collection. For example, France has limits on what data we’re allowed to transfer out. Legally, we should set up a separate database facility in France, and we might need another one in Germany. |
| Millie: | So where’s the problem, Dobbs? We’ll have offices in each country anyway. Because we use PCs in every office, we’ll just set up the local data in each office. You can build a communication network, right? Then we just transfer everything back here and do what we want. |
| Dobbs: | Sure, from a technology standpoint, we can do that. But what I’m trying to say is that we’re not supposed to do it that way. France says we’re not supposed to export this data. |
| Toni: | Well, I don’t see how we can work that way. At some point, the managers in the United States are going to need to look at that data. What are we supposed to do? Fly to Paris every time we have a marketing decision? |
| Millie: | Those rules sound crazy. Does anyone actually obey them? Maybe we should just set it up the way we want. What can they do to us anyway? |
| Toni: | Dobbs, isn’t there some way we can transfer the data without the government knowing about it? I mean, we’re going to be sending tons of data back and forth. I can’t believe they can monitor all of it. |
| Dobbs: | I don’t know much about their laws yet. I just know the French government doesn’t want us to transfer the data. I suppose we could think about using a coding scheme so no one can tell what we’re sending. We do have to be careful though. France also has pretty strict rules about private companies not being allowed to encrypt data. Still, you’re right about the amount of data. I imagine my staff could cook up something that’ll work. But I’m not sure we should work this way, Toni. |
| Millie: | Look, Dobbs, what’s the worst that can happen? If they complain, we’ll just apologize and tell them that we’ll do it their way. It’s not like we’re stealing anything. We still pay lots of money to collect the data and organize it. How can anyone care about where we store it? Toni, it’ll make it a lot easier to handle the marketing end. We can’t afford to run each nation separately. The combined data will let us make decisions faster and cut our costs. Plus, it’ll give you more control over the day-to-day decisions. |
| Toni: | Well, that’s true. No matter who I send to head these departments, I’ll still need to check the data and verify their decisions. If I had to travel to each agency, I’d spend all my time in airports. I don’t see where we have much choice. Dobbs, check into it a little more, then come back with some options for us. We want to be careful, but we’ve got a right to use that data. |
| Dobbs: | All right, it’s a little risky, but I think we can do it. Just don’t tell everyone about how we’re going to be transferring the data. We’ll set it up to look like the data is staying in France. We can use the backup data. We’ll keep the transmission time as short as possible. Once we get the data in the United States, if anyone asks, we’ll just say we got it from somewhere else. |
Questions