Fletcher Features
Going Global, Getting Naked! |
 Have you ever wondered how this little green monster became
a global phenomenon? In an event sponsored by the International Business
Relations Program, Marcel Legrand, Senior Vice President of Product
Management and Global Development for Monster.com, detailed the firm’s
journey into international markets for Fletcher students. Although Mr.
Legrand explained his presentation would be about the challenges of
Monster.com’s overseas expansion, he elaborated to include his
perspective on the deeper trends and uncertainties in his business.Founded in the early 1990s, Monster.com started as an online message board known as ‘Monster Board’. When the company was first started, the name Monster was more of a liability to the company for CEOs tended to question how ‘I’m going to get my people off this?’” Despite the initial lukewarm response to the company’s brand, founder Jeffrey Taylor stuck with the name because he recognized its versatility. Having bought some brick and mortar companies in UK and Australia, the company built an Internet solution on top of the company’s services and soon expanded internationally. Today, Monster.com is (almost) a universal name. The brand’s flexibility enabled the company to provide various career development services to job-seekers. Despite operations in 27 countries, Monster.com’s overseas expansion had not been always been a smooth sail. Factors ranging from time to market or entry mode hampered the company’s establishment of a global footprint. The company’s attempt to use a Monster.com “light” version in countries where infrastructure was limited failed in a number of countries. This model did not translate because all work is done from the US with no support on the ground and the recruiting industry is one that requires local presence. In other instances, by the time Monster.com entered a market, a number of local entrepreneurs had already copied Monster.com’s models and launched their services already. This was the case in India. Within a month of its official launch, Monster.com withdrew from the market for the competitive landscape was stacked against the company. Labor laws, gender, race, and privacy across borders also posed a challenge to Monster.com’s overseas expansions. What is legal in one country is not in another. Compliance with local regulation on the type of information that can be legally provided to a recruiter is especially difficult on the Internet. While demographic information, such as martial status and nationality, are readily available to employers in Australia, it is illegal for US employers to inquire about it. One client of Monster.com’s global job-searcher database called the firm and exclaimed: “My God, you’re showing us information we’re not supposed to see!” Technology was another challenge that Monster.com confronted as it expanded overseas. According to Mr. Legrand, the US has a convoluted view of the Internet that everyone has access to it. However, that is not the case in some overseas markets. Furthermore, different countries have different preferred modes of Internet access. While i-mode was a success in Japan, WAP was a flop in Europe, even though they are both wireless Internet access protocol. Nonetheless, Mr. Legrand believes that desktop Internet access will play a smaller role in the future. As a result, Monster.com established a few research and development centers in Asia Pacific to prepare for new platforms that may emerge from the technological evolution. Legrand believes that Monster.com is a self-fulfilling prophecy. He believes that Monster is such a powerful idea, that it cannot help but come to fruition and change the way people find and are offered work. At Monster.com, employees control their own lives and destinies as reflected in the company’s advertising campaigns. In the U.S., empowerment allows employees to be free agents, who have the freedom to compare compensation and benefits packages across firms and industries. The desire for a better quality of life drives the churn in the workforce. Legrand also believes that there is a lifestyle change taking place in America, especially in the post-9/11 world. He said that “productivity increases, but hours worked stay the same, the length vacations get shorter, and people take high power vacations instead.” Legrand is a self-proclaimed member of the “sandwich generation. I’m at work less, but will take a phone call or respond to Blackberry at ten at night.” The Monster.com website states that “Monster connects the most progressive companies with the most qualified career-minded individuals, offering innovative technology and superior services that give them more control over the recruiting process… Monster is a lifelong career network,” Mr. Legrand admitted that the declaration on the website is intentionally somewhat ambiguous. He suggested Monster would eventually evolve into a kind of “Career Operating System,” providing financial services, real estate information for relocating personnel, and eventually education. Aside from a broad range of other topics, Mr. Legrand discussed the future of the employment sector and how it might change if whole new modes of thinking were adopted. Legrand claims that the blending of work and pleasure on-call and off is affecting a profound lifestyle change. As firms become more desperate to hire the best, they will be forced to offer hiring packages that not only provide compensation, but also a learning experience. Mr. Legrand foresees firms resorting to training their own workers or sending them through school, much like the United States military with its Reserve Officer Training Corps. A military salute to that little green monster whose proving to be quite versatile, nimble and futures-oriented, as it marches across the globe! By Klaus Johannsmeier, Tufts 2006 klaus.johannsmeier@tufts.edu |