The stateless micro-multinational

Last week's Economist had an article praising the stateless multinational. The article's perspective on the new breed of global company was worth noting.

The conventional wisdom is that a global business is a bad thing as it pursues a race to the bottom for lower taxes and costs. Clearly a rational business does this but the Economist points out the alternative is no better:

The real threat comes from overly chummy links between a state and its multinationals. Although politicians may have been more comfortable in a world where what was good for General Motors was good for America, that tended to lead to protectionism and antiquated working practices. Firms in which loyalty to the state goes beyond the economic value it offers usually expect something in return—soft contracts and subsidies, perhaps, or standards conveniently set in their interest. In fact the sorry story of GM itself highlights the dangers of being a national champion. Rather than fear the stateless corporation, people would be wise to do all they can to make them feel at home in their country.

At Ephox I perceive us as a small example of a "stateless multinational." We have our engineering team in Australia, our HQ in the US (including VP Sales & Marketing, COO) and now a growing operation in Europe (including CEO and CTO).

The challenges for a global company are clearly present. Communicating ever changing priorities takes work. Our US and European team have a sales-driven perspective and our Brisbane team tends to have a more engineering-driven perspective. Getting them on the same page is, well, not easy at times. Time zones and frequent long haul travel drives us crazy.

Despite all of this the opportunities for a global company are also evident. These opportunities are also one which our Australian heritage seem reasonably well equipped for.

Australians, on the whole, tend to be tolerant and welcoming of different cultures ("I am, you are, we are, Australian"). We work hard at not wasting time and energy on conflict as conflict is 'bullshit'. Empire building and being 'too big for ones boots' is frowned upon. Australian prime minister Bob Hawke probably summed up this spirit when, on a trip to Japan, he said that we weren't going to "play funny buggers" (apparently that didn't translate well.)

Embracing a global culture whilst retaining key elements of our heritage is an ongoing project at Ephox. I guess the ultimate is to take the best elements from all of our locations and people. As the Economist article says, a "globally integrated company needs a single culture, and that the best way to foster this is to make the highest ethics anywhere in the firm the norm for everyone, wherever they are working. Anything less tends to corrode the culture."

In my experience bringing out the best, and discouraging the worst, of our cultural tendencies has to be a cornerstone of any company with operations all over the world.

(For more reading The Economist has a whole series on the topic.)

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