Tuck News and Events - Tuck International Forum 2005

Clash of the Corporate Titans

Multinational corporations are discovering that developing nations are much more than low-cost manufacturing hubs and ready markets for their goods and services. Increasingly in the 21st century, countries such as China and India, are producing formidable corporate competitors. "Going Global: Challenges for Companies in Developing Countries," the second annual Tuck International Forum, examined the rising prominence of Chinese, Indian, Russian, and Latin American companies. The event also highlighted and the hurdles these countries face as they break into the global marketplace and how these issues are changing the playing field for multinationals. The May 6 forum, which took place at the Tuck School of Business, was organized by Tuck students and sponsored by Tuck's Center for International Business (CIB) and the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth.

Forum panels featured business leaders, scholars, and policymakers from around the world and attracted members of the Dartmouth and local business communities. The panel presentations underscored the complex interplay of corporate and cultural factors in today's global market. China's and India's large populations offer attractive labor costs to foreign investors, for example, but doing business in and with communist China presents vastly different challenges than conducting commerce with/in democratic India. And while these countries' labor costs are a boon to foreign investors, they are a threat to Mexican companies that used to dominate the manufacturing scene.

"Companies from developing countries find different routes to the global market based in part on the comparative advantage of their home countries, whether that be intellectual capital, as in the case of India; commodities, as in the case of Russia and Latin American countries, such as Brazil and Argentina; or low-cost manufacturing, as in the case of China," notes Joseph Massey, professor of international business and CIB director. "Comparative advantage is dynamic, not static, as countries adopt strategies to develop their own national markets and technological and educational assets."

For first-year Tuck student Chandramouli Jayaram, the panelists' diverse perspectives on how emerging global competitors are establishing brand recognition, leveraging intellectual capital, developing alliances, and competing against multinationals on home turf illustrated the "other side of the coin."

"We normally hear about corporations in the developed world going global and the issues they face. Here we heard how companies in some of the largest developing nations in the world cope with the tremendous cultural, political, and economic obstacles in making their businesses succeed internationally," says Jayaram, who is from India.

Jayaram and other members of Tuck's student-run International Club, particularly second-year students Federico Robin Delfino, Andrei A. Rodzianko, Javier Romero, and Guilherme Steagall Gertsenchtein, organized the forum. Rodzianko even recruited his father, Alex O. Rodzianko, CEO and country head, Russia, for Deutsche Bank Ltd., to participate in the panel discussion about Russia and Eastern Europe.

The International Club students also helped launch the International Forum's debut on "Opportunities and Risks in Latin America" last year. They agree the forums not only enhance their own Tuck education experience, they help promote the school's image abroad.

"These kinds of events are critical to raising awareness of Tuck and its stature in the international MBA marketplace, which makes us all more valuable," says Rodzianko.

"The [forum] is a great opportunity to bring seasoned executives with significant experience managing business across borders to address Tuck students and share their views," adds Yucatán native Romero. "It is a worthwhile event that adds to the curriculum and the experience of being a Tuck student."

For more information on the Tuck International Forum, please contact the Center for International Business or visit their website at www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/cib.

Panelists

Fausto Barajas Cummings, PEMEX

Charles Freeman III, Office of the United States Trade Representative

Harry E. Griffith T'84, British Petroleum

Arup Gupta, TCS America

Rodrigo Lowndes, Morgan Stanley

Alex O. Rodzianko D'73, Deutsche Bank Ltd.

Sonal Shah, Goldman, Sachs & Company and Indicorps

Eric A. Spiegel T'87, Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.

John Z. Yang, Beijing International MBA Program at Peking University

Clash of the Corporate Titans

Panelists

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