Does your company need to strengthen or weaken its regional focus?

Ask yourself the following three questions: 

1. Is your company’s objective for the next 2-5 years to enter new countries?
2. Is your company’s objective for the next 2-5 years to increase sales in a region other than your home region?
3. Is you company’s objective for the next 2-5 years to maintain or increase the number of regional hubs?

If your answers contain at least two ‘yes’, your company will likely need to revise its regional strategy. Research shows that regions have played a crucial role in cross-country integration and continue to do so these days. Companies’ international strategies have regularly used regions as a crucial unit of analysis. The key point – often underestimated by managers – is that regional initiatives do not exclude local and/or global ones. All three co-exist in multinational companies. The crucial tenet is that they need to be aligned to generate most value for the company.

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies will need to…