"Very smart people in Denmark. Why do they come to America to do their work?"
Most of the smart people stay... a Danish guy like Jakob Nielsen doesn't match a guy like Søren Lauesen, in my opinion. But while Jakob Nielsen is world famous, Søren Lauesen is most well known here. However, Jakob Nielsen has commercialised himself on a level that Søren Lauesen may not be able to do.
As I said, USA has a big language benefit. My niece wants to spend a year in high school in another country, and it will be UK, USA, Australia or Japan - she didn't decide yet. The first three were selected based on the language. North Europe has realized this, and is now using English on a scale that was unthinkable 10 years ago - the latest Eurovision Song Contest is a good example of that, almost all countries north of the Alps used English, and almost all countries south of the Alps were using their native language. The long-term implications of this is huge, I expect my daughter to study and work in English when she grows up, no matter which north European country she will do it in. It will probably neither be U.S. English or British English, but that's another discussion :-)
There are many European companies that focus on USA before they focus on other European countries. And once then start focusing on USA, they try to make themselves look as if they were an American company towards the Americans. I just talked to a French company who hire people with very good U.S. accent and gives them work hours that match USA, but in France. They do have an office in USA, but that is only sales - everything important is made in France.
In the same way, some American companies may be present in Europe, but only in some countries. We know Coca Cola, but the average person here doesn't know Exxon Mobil, Walmart, Chevron, ConocoPhilips. GE is a bank with extraordinary high interest rates, GM made cars but I guess some would be unsure if it still exists, Ford also made cars but maybe they got bought by somebody?, AT&T is the iPhone reseller in USA, HP makes printers, and Valero, Bank of A, Citigroup, Berkshire are unknown. We know IBM, of course, but also because their health care IT HQ is in Denmark, and they previously had a large European HQ here, too. McKesson is totally unknown. The most famous American company is probably McDonald's, it represents everything John Doe here knows about USA ;-)
My key point is, that while physical products usually transport well on short distances, information typically transports itself well along instead of across language barriers, and therefore there is a large exchange of people between Scandinavia and USA. I know several Americans who have moved here and are happy about that, just like Danes that have moved to USA and are happy about that. I think I know more Americans here, than Germans...
With regard to technology, think of it as market segments. If there is an international player that dominates a market, will it be possible to dominate a segment (a European country) with worse technology? Most likely not. If you want to own your home market in a competitive environment with big international players, you need to be better at the technology, or you're busted. It's that simple. Being better must be measured using the segment's criteria, of course, as I wrote previously.
Big dominating companies only focus on innovation when forced to. For instance, Cerner currently tries to maximize it's market share, because the market grows so extremely fast. This comes at the cost of innovation, and while they want to do everything in-house, I would not be surprised if they start purchasing other companies only in order to speed up product development.
When Microsoft Office started to take market share in Denmark, it was the worst of all products, technologically and usability-wise. The menus were definitely designed for the English language and then translated afterwards, and the technology was not what was expected. However, they did one thing well, they could exchange Word files with other Word users. This day today, Microsoft still does not localize their products well, and that is the reason why technologies like Microsoft Media Center are unknown by most people. There are other technologies out there that satisfies the user better.
I will be seriously impressed by U.S. technology, when I can use a mobile phone in New York just as well as in any random place in Denmark :-) |
