All Business is Local: Why Place Matters More than Ever in a Global, Virtual World

John Quelch; Katherine Jocz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241961645 ISBN 13: 9780241961643

Publisher: Portfolio Penguin, 2012

What's the most important factor in business today? Global competition? Digital development? Or is the age-old concept of 'place' actually the key to success even in todays advanced economy?

Marketing experts John Quelch and Katherine Jocz believe that huge opportunities are on offer to marketers and business leaders if they stay focussed on the power of locality. In All Business Is Local, they propose a radically different way of looking at marketing. As society becomes increasingly globalized and obsessed with the virtual world, businesses can easily forget that 'place' is more relevant than ever, and that it remains a major factor in the way we organize our lives.

Radically redefining 'place' as a business imperative in the global economy, Quelch and Jocz explore five categories (psychological, physical, virtual, geographical and global) and teach us that just as customers' relationships to places profoundly affect their relationships to businesses, today's companies - large and small - have to be local as well as global in order to succeed.

Review:

This book is a timely reminder that not all markets are global and even those that are have local foundations. Consumers trust big brands but they also trust local relationships based in their community. Well worth the read (Sir Terry Leahy, former CEO, Tesco)

This is not a back-to-basics book: it takes the debate a great step forward. All Business Is Local identifies and endorses the most important aspects of global market­ing - then convincingly demonstrates not just the need for local sensitivity but also the huge competitive value that an evocative sense of place can confer on ambitious brands (Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO WPP)

Technology has rendered distance irrelevant, but that does not mean we should for­get the importance of location. Quelch and Jocz remind us that, while we may all be global citizens, we are deeply influenced by our connections to place. All Business Is Local is a thoughtful and counterintuitive book (Don Tapscott, bestselling co-author of Wikinomics)

About the Author:

John A. Quelch is dean, vice president and distinguished professor of inter­national management at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). He was formerly senior asso­ciate dean of the Harvard Business School and dean of the London Business School. He is also a director of WPP and Alere, a member of the Coun­cil on Foreign Relations, and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Katherine E. Jocz is a consultant and writer on marketing. She was formerly a research associate at the Harvard Business School and director of networks and relationships at Marketspace, a Monitor Group company. She has served as a member of the editorial review board of the Journal of Marketing and the board of directors of the Asso­ciation for Consumer Research.