Globalisation, International Configurations and Strategic Implications: The Case of Retailing

In contrast to the old debate between national and more globally orientated strategies, recent typologies, as outlined by Calori and others in a recent issue of this journal, have begun to uncover subtler international strategies applicable to less patently global industries. This article investigates whether such typologies can be adapted to a service sector such as retailing and analyses performance differences across the whole set of these new categorisations, segregating some of the main sectors. Focusing on clothing where scale economies were lower, we present a case study demonstrating how this approach can still yield strategic insights and recommendations at an early stage in internationalisation, even for players located in more peripheral locations such as Norway. We confirm ‘continental leadership’ strategies (under consideration) can be associated with slightly better profitability for retailers more generally; but we warn that this is riskier for clothing retailers, for whom market share emerges as a less critical driver. The most profitable retail strategy configuration is the bold ‘global shaper’ strategy. However, taking into account the case company’s resource position within the clothing sector, our approach recommends consideration of the ‘quasi-global’ strategic configuration, associated with an improvement of just under 2% return on investment. This perspective also aids ‘strategic benchmarking’ (illustrated against high performers H&M and Zara), setting an agenda for operational improvements.