Why do so many global strategies fail-despite companies' powerful brands and other border-crossing advantages? Seduced by market size, the illusion of a borderless, "flat" world, and the allure of similarities, firms launch one-size-fits-all strategies.

But cross-border differences are larger than we often assume, explains Pankaj Ghemawat in Redefining Global Strategy. Most economic activity-including direct investment, tourism, and communication-happens locally, not internationally.

In this "semiglobalized" world, one-size-fits-all strategies don't stand a chance. Companies must instead reckon with cross-border differences. Ghemawat shows you how-by providing tools for:

• Assessing the cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic differences between countries at the industry level and deciding which ones merit attention.

• Tracking the implications of particular border-crossing moves for your company's ability to create value.

• Creating superior performance with strategies optimized for adaptation (adjusting to differences), aggregation (overcoming differences), and arbitrage (exploiting differences), and for compound objectives.

In-depth examples reveal how companies such as Cemex, Toyota, Procter & Gamble, Tata Consultancy Services, IBM, and GE Healthcare have adroitly managed cross-border differences-as well as how other well-known companies have failed at this challenge.

Crucial for any business competing across borders, this book will transform the way you approach global strategy.

• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Value in a World of Differences
• Semiglobalization and Strategy
• Differences Across Countries: The Cage Distance Framework
• Global Value Creation: The Adding Value Scorecard
• Strategies for Global Value Creation
• Adaptation: Adjusting to Differences
• Aggregation: Overcoming Differences
• Arbitrage: Exploiting Differences
• Playing the Differences: The AAA Triangle
• Toward a Better Future: Getting Started
• Notes
• Selected Resources
• Index
• About the Author