Symantec Case Study & A.T Kearney's Global Index

Symantec aspires to go global.

Problems

1. Financials

• Not growing fast enough

2. Localizing versions

• Translating and enabling systems, guides - radical rewrites & design?
• Packaging (manufacturing)
• Testing on computers and operating systems in the different areas

Choices

1. Outsource
2. Manage in-house
3. Leave it to re-sellers & distributors to create localized versions and handle the manufacturing for each national market (done so currently in Japan, but means most of the sales rev is going to Japanese re-sellers, deals with non US manufacturers bundling versions could also bring in more money and reach new
customers)
4. Single division responsible for all language & manufacturing or should it be farmed out to each national office - problem with multiple divisions - quality control, marketing, message management e.g. product name translated differently in each country

Solution - have a European headquarter, but where?
1. Ireland
2. Israel
3. India

As a group in class we began to brainstorm on the different dimensions that may effect our chosen country.

Country	Ireland	India	Israel
Dimension
Digital
Proximity to market
Multi Lingual
Infrastructure
Education/skills
Stability (Political)
Corruption
Work Ethic
Time zone
Distance (FTS)
Legal/regulation
Cost ( HR etc)	3K	250	?
Culture
Past History
Reputation
Macro Econ (local)
Climate
Labour Market	10K Graduates per yr	500K	10K

In the end 18 people voted for India, 11 for Ireland (including myself), and 0 for Israel. Ireland seemed like a logical  choice mainly because of its location. This would mean cutting down on transport costs, avoiding currency exchanges, and benefiting from being apart of the EU, e.g. in terms of free movement of goods and labour, favorable laws and regulations etc.

From researching Symantec's current situation with outsourcing it seems they choose Ireland as their outsourcing location. Today it remains the main manufacturing headquarters in Europe, but they have chosen to set up other functions such as R&D and customer support across a variety of countries throughout the EU and and Southeast Asia. This has allowed the company to mix and match the different benefits available to them across a range of countries.

A.T Kearney's Global Index was a good starting point in helping us determine dimensions for the Symantec case, but we also identified some downsides of the consultant companies research paper. These are highlighted in the table below.

Good	Use it? Trust? Reference?	Bad
Factual	Useful at a city level	Out dated
Article generates o/o		Model transparency
Good Methodology