Go global - or no?

Greg McNally was up a creek. Literally. The CEO of software start-up DataClear was standing in the Alta River in Norway considering his options. Only a few weeks ago, he had called an offsite in Montana to celebrate his company's success in racking up $5 million in sales from its first product, ClearCloud-a powerful data analysis package. He had meant to use the meeting to consider expanding sales of ClearCloud from its current base in the telecommunications and financial services industries into the chemical, petrochemical, and pharmaceutical markets. But that was before his talented and successful head of sales, Susan Moskowski, burst into his office with the news about VisiDat It seemed that the British start-up was testing a data analysis package of its own that was only weeks away from launch. "We need to agree on a strategy for dealing with this kind of competition: Susan had told Greg. ULF they start out as a global player, and we stay hunkered down in the U.S., they'll kill us." Because of that news, Greg had changed the agenda of the off-site, instead having Susan present the options for taking DataClear global. The meeting had taken place two weeks ago, at which point the consensus had been to establish a European presence and probably one in Japan. The only question seemed to be whether to do it from scratch or to form partnerships with local players. But as Greg stood in the Alta casting for salmon, a host of questions crowded in on him. Did DataClear really need to go global? Should if instead expand into different domestic markets? Should it do both at once? Could the company afford to? Four commentators offer their advice in this fictional case study.