Aussie Women in the Global Arena – Our New Report (Part Two)

As I mentioned yesterday, our latest Women in Global Business Report has hit the streets. It’s chock full of findings about the progress and experiences of Aussie businesswomen in the international arena, and they ongoing hurdles they face.

While my earlier post focused on female Aussie entrepreneurs, the report also offers insights into the experiences of Australian women playing major roles as senior employees with strategic responsibilities in international businesses.

Just over a quarter of these respondents are members of the C-suite within their organisation. These women are younger (only 18% were 50+), and even more highly educated (90% hold a bachelor degree or higher) than the owner‐operators.

Their organisations tend to be much larger – 43% have 500+ employees – and are older and more experienced overseas.

We contend that some of these women may become the next generation of Australian international entrepreneurs, as they are currently building the sets of requisite skills for such transitions. Their rise within organisations also reflects the welcome growing presence of senior women in corporate Australia.

Read more here.

Tomorrow, I profile the rise of China, and also the hurdles Aussie businesswomen still face when internationalising.

Advertisement

Join my conversation about Uniqlo

Hi patient blog readers,

I’ve been making noise over at The Conversation again, this time about the arrival of various international retailers to Australia, including one of Japan’s finest: Uniqlo.

“Japanese fashion label Uniqlo and homeware store Muji will enter the Australian market next year, following other recent arrivals H&M, Topshop and Zara. Despite the purported decline of brick and mortar stores, Australian shoppers will finally be able to shop at stores they’d once only encountered overseas. It seems a far cry from only a few years ago…”

Read more here, make comments, tell you friends etc…

Final day of survey action

Our survey of Aussie international businesswomen (which I mentioned a few weeks back), is closing at midnight tonight (August 31st).

We’ve had 370 responses thus far, but we’d love that number to be higher.  If you are an Australian woman engaged in international business please complete the survey.  If you know any Australian women engaged in international business please tell them about the survey.  If you make cyber shouts out in the wilderness through a blog, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or any other such media, please mention this opportunity. The link is this: https://fbeunimelb.asia.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_cw29gfzSRzgbehm

Thanks hugely for your efforts.

On the ‘shouty media’ front, I now also make (much more frequent) twittery noises under the moniker of @drsamma.

Calling all Aussie international businesswomen

I’m currently involved in a really promising Honours research project here at the University of Melbourne, and I’d love to get you involved.

Sarah Gundlach and I are surveying Aussie businesswomen on behalf of a multi-government network called Women in Global Business (they’ve grown in just over a year to more than 1000 members).

We are exploring what motivates these women to engage in international business. We ask about where they are targeting and why. We ask them to identify any barriers they have encountered to expansion and the networks they have used. We also explore aspects of the entrepreneurial mindset.  It’s the first study of this scale in Australia (and one of the first in the world).

It will not only give us a sense of what Aussie businesswomen are up to, but also what could drive more international adventurousness, and how organisations like WIGB can help (via lobbying, networking, info sharing etc).

So, this is a call to any women who would like to share their views with us. Click on image below (or here) to tell us about your experience engaging in business across borders.

Please pass it on to any eligible businesswomen you know.

And there’s a chance to win a funky laptop bag for one lucky survey participant.

I’ll be reporting back on our findings towards the end of the year too.

Finally, WIGB are currently doing a roadshow of events with great speakers.  Click on this pic below to see where and when (and if you’re at the Melbourne event look out for me!).

My bro does the hard work for me

I was in the process of drafting a post about the recently announced Lion Nathan/Kirin takeover of Little World (the folks who brew Little Creatures and White Rabbit), but my little brother meet me to it.  So head to his always entertaining and insightful blog and read about it: It’s a Little World after all…

… OK, now that you’re back, I would add that this was a nice “long play” by Lion Nathan/Kirin given they had a ‘blocking’ shareholding in this growing firm from the outset (20% on formation, 35% since the IPO in 2005). This meant no rival brewer (i.e. Fosters, Coca Cola Amatil or Coopers) was going to get hold of this prospect without Lion getting a ‘right of reply’.

It was a very sensible ‘option’ to have taken on what has turned out to the most successful craftbrewer in Australia in terms of growth and brand awareness (Little World pitched themselves as the 5th biggest Aussie brewer in this document).

Lion does have a history with acquisitions of microbrewers, taking over Hahn back in 1993 (see here for a decent description of that move), which has evolved into James Squire.

And, Lion Nathan failed in a bid for Coopers a few years ago.

I agree with Leon that the biggest ‘kick’ that’ll come from this acquisition will be much greater reach for Little Creatures beers.  I would not be surprised to see the brand become a real challenger to Coopers in the medium-term (and wallop SAB Miller’s/Matilda Bay’s Fat Yak along the way).

And, meanwhile,the Casella/Yellowtail beer (that I mentioned back here) is finally on the shelves, and the winemakers are talking very ambitiously (their brewery reportedly has the capacity to service 7% of the Aussie market – that’s more than Coopers!).

Maybe even macro-brewing might get interesting in Australia in the coming couple of years.

 

Follow @drsamma