1 - To understand the main strategy issues associated with international expansion and with formulating a global strategy for the firm: local adaptation vs. global integration; concentration vs. dispersion of activities; autonomy vs. decentralization of decision making.
2 - To bring students and participants to realize that multinational/foreign firms suffer from a "liability of foreigness" that they must more than compensate for by leveraging some resources and sources of advantage at a global level.
3 - To highlight the implications of adapting to local customer preferences and other local market conditions and get students and participants to understand that there are major costs disadvantages associated with too much adaptation.
4 - To show that the right balance between local adaptation and global integration varies by industry, business, product categories, countries and customer segments.
5 - To get students and participants to realize that a firm's international organization and decision-making processes directly impacts the way in which it will address this "local adaptation / global integration" issue.

Global strategy, international management, local adaptation, global integration, organization structure for international operations

Masters, Grande Ecole students and Executive Education participants with a knowledge of the fundamentals of business strategy.
This case fits well towards the end of a Strategy or Strategic Management course or can be used in an International Management course.

Cosmetics and personal care products

Full version also available.
Teaching note supplement with PowerPoint slides (16 slides).