Inter-related International Business

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that changes in governments of Italy and Hong Kong precipitated events which required that Beckman Instruments, a Fortune 500 company, totally re-engineer all of its processes. The author points out that, throughout the first half of the 1990s, Beckman was profitable and successful in penetrating new markets worldwide; unfortunately, in late 1994, at the same time, (1) in Italy, there was a complete change of government; (2) the rest of Western Europe was experiencing a major recession and (3) the realization that Hong Kong was going to be given back to the People's Republic of China began to dawn in the minds of the long term development team. The paper relates that Beckman found that the international market is riskier than the domestic market; although Beckman tried to understand the various types of negotiation and business ways of various cultures, like many other international companies, it lost both money and prospective business when the international countries political climate changed.

From the Paper:

"By fall of 1994, Beckman realized that it had to totally reengineer itself again. This time not only did it move its emphasis totally away from the scientific instrument focus; it had to refocus the medical device side of its company. With the economic disaster in Europe, Beckman had to close many of its offices and layoff hundreds of people in every company from Great Britain to Germany. It also had to layoff hundreds if not thousands of US employees as well. Before October 1994, Beckman had retired 90 percent of the employees who had more than 20 years of employment with the company By November 1994; Beckman had given notice to over two thousand individuals that were employed by the company worldwide. Employment practices in Europe required as long as one year's notice for most employees. In the United States, employees were laid off just before Christmas."

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