Evidence of a glocal marketing strategy: a case study in the Brazilian telecommunication market

Abstract

This article is devoted to analyse and discuss the level of control and autonomy that multinational enterprises (MNEs) should grant to their subsidiaries. It analyse the impact of subsidiaries' capacity to innovate and develop new products and services to the Brazilian telecommunications market, based on the case-study of Telefónica business, a subsidiary of Telefónica, a Spanish multinational communication company. The Lasserre's global integration/local responsiveness framework was applied to the data obtained from face-to-face in-depth structured interviews with key actors in Telefónica business (TNB) to investigate the relationship between global integration strategy and local adaptation in the Brazilian telecommunications market. The results show that Telefónica uses a glocal approach since its subsidiary has the autonomy to create and adapt its products when the headquarters recognise that global decisions might not meet local demands. By showing that Telefónica has successfully used a glocal approach on the Brazilian market, as its subsidiary had the autonomy to create and adapt products when global company products might not meet local demands, this study is useful for other multinational companies when going to new markets.