A New Approach to Building a Global Business

Abstract

Political, economic, and technological changes in recent years have created a world with global economic intertwining, increased mobility of world citizens, and communications needs that far exceed the capability of current infrastructures. To meet demands by this“Global Village” for services that can meet new needs for mobility and communications, a new organisational paradigm must respond. This new paradigm is global from Day 1, “at home” everywhere, and profit-oriented.

In the past, such global organisations have primarily been loosely intertwined, inter- fovernmental organisations with the primary objective of providing social or commercia enefits rather than bottom-line profitability. Other global organisations have sprung from a strong national company that has expanded internationally but still retained a defining national image (e.g. Motorola, Ericcson, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola).

ICO is perhaps the first organisation to fit the new paradigm demanded by the “Global Village.” ICO will offer mobile satellite services to handheld-sized phones globally beginning in the year 2000. We are a global, multilingual, multicultural company. This is reflected in the company’s heritage, management team, partners and employees.

ICO Global Communications will link people anytime, anywhere on the planet. By the nature of our service offering, we must be global from Day 1 offering services for people to communicate around the world. We are achieving this through a global network of people and partners. People and partners are the key to creating an organisation that is “at home” everywhere with products and services that are tailored to local markets through language and service.

ICO is a truly multinational company with no single country as its “home”. Our partners consist of 59 investors from 51 different countries representing the‘A’ list of telecommunications players. Some are satellite industry players, many are leading telecommunications operators, while still others are financial organisations that have the capital and local market experience to distribute ICO services. At present, we have over 230 employees representing over 30 different nationalities.

Certainly, the management challenges of creating and operating such an organisation are formidable but the potential rewards in serving the “Global Village” are enormous and can probably only be realised by the development of such a new, unique management and organisational approach.