Heard in our (Saturday awful illegal scam) class and faithfully reported:

- "In yesterday's class, which I unfortunately missed, we talked about..." - student in Global Management and Strategy

- History is a very good predictor of which type of companies will win in which market - assuming they already have a Firm Specific Advantage which prevents the other national companies to beat them on their home turf. I have even a better predictor. Give me the country's national sport and I will tell you which firms will win. Take India. They play crickets, English firms are very succcessful there and beat everyone else in any given market where they have strong players. Vodafone for instance is very big out there. BP beats Exxon. Take Malaysia. They play baseball, and guess what? GE's strong there. Now take Brazil, they play football, Telefonica beats everyone, Fiat and Volkswagen beats GM and Ford, Siemens beats GE, Carrefour beats WallMart..." - Global Management and Strategy professor

"- History seems to be playing a larger and larger role as time goes by. In Mexico, who would you say should win? Spain!!! of course! Telefonica is winning, BBVA is winning, citibank is large but not first there, Zara is winning, there is no Gap in Mexico. Of course, Spain doesn't have a Wall Mart nor a car company that's big enough to be a leader out there. " - same prof

"- Some industries are dominated (Intel beats ST in Europe; Nokia beats Motorola in the US; Microsoft beats everyone everywhere) but most non-commodity markets are moving toward concentrated types (large companies still dominant on in their domestic markets: Carrefour does not beat Wall Mart at home and vice versa; same with Citibank and ABN-AMRO)"
- same prof

-" ok, if you have not read today's case, which I am sure is a most unlikely event, then please turn your name tag upside down, I won't be cold calling you." - Global Management Strategy prof
(1 student had his name tag upside down in this infamous Saturday class)