We’ve been doing a lot of work recently for global organisations, headquartered in places as diverse as London, Oxford, Sydney, Geneva and Stockholm. It’s tremendously interesting work, and it gives us a real chance to explore what the digital landscape should look like at a global scale.

Our projects have addressed strategy and design for global intranets, knowledge management, the digital workplace, and collaboration.

What’s interesting, however, is our experience that you don’t have to be big to be global.

Big and global

Some of our clients have been big multinationals. These include a 40,000 person world-wide insurance company, a 10,000 person global luxury house, a huge UN agency, and a major international NGO.

These big organisations are complex. They operate in dozens (or more than a hundred) countries,  consisting of many different business units, and a complex web of internal connections.

These projects bring the challenge of meeting global and local needs to the forefront. Understanding the role of the global team also becomes paramount.

In many cases, it’s also about working out where to start, and what value the global team can deliver in the short- to medium-term.

Small and global

We’re also working with a bunch of small organisations that are also global in their reach.

For example, there are several engineering firms we’re helping that have only a few hundred staff, but nonetheless operate in a dozen countries. A global NGO of a similar size also reaches out to many countries, which are often undergoing internal turmoil.

Increasingly, the concept of being “born global” is becoming an on-the-ground reality.

What’s really interesting — and very challenging — is that these small-but-global firms have all the same challenges as their big cousins.

They have to deal with staff working in many different countries (each with it’s own employment legislation), differing products and services, and a variety of business structures.

We certainly live in interesting times, and we’re glad to have a chance to work with all these global firms, both large and small.

Are you working for a global firm? Is it large or small?