Micro Multinational: Is Heaven Fresh still "Micro"?

Micro Multinational

Multi-national corporations are generally believed to be powerful and influential companies with unlimited means. In this era of Internet, thousands of ventures are starting to operate in multiple countries at an early stage. Their needs are of a large MNC because of their ferocious growth pace. But they are challenged by limited resources as a small business. They are being called "Micro-Multinationals". This blog is to share my experiences of running such a distribution company – Heaven Fresh.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Is Heaven Fresh still "Micro"?

After my first blog entry I presented it to my dear friend, Celal Okur, for his feedback. His immediate reaction was that I should not post the total number of Heaven Fresh employees as it makes the company look much smaller than its image. I do agree with him and honestly speaking, under normal circumstances, I always try to portray an image of the company that is somewhat bigger than the reality (After all this is my baby). My reason for going against my own normal bragging behavior about HF was that I wanted a new reader to have a feeling that Heaven Fresh is actually a micro-multinational even though the company revenues are in millions and its products are sold in several different countries. The question is, when a micro-multinational will not be 'micro' anymore? Any comments? Suggestions?

I do believe that Heaven Fresh is a micro-multinational as the challenges that each one of company's offices faces are of a small company trying to make its mark in a particular market. The 'big' image of Heaven Fresh comes from the collective efforts of all the autonomous offices/distribution centers of the company. Just to make things simple, Heaven Fresh can be thought of as 6 different companies in various countries working under one name and sharing their resources to reduce the overheads thus maximize their visibility, negotiation power and the profitability. Coincidently, I am reading an interesting book called Wikinomics. The book covers the subject of the power of mass collaboration and its roll in 21st century businesses. Once I finish the book, I will post my thoughts on collaboration of many small companies to form a micro-multinational.

4 Comments:

xxx said...: Hi Imran,

Good show, I hope to see more from you in the next few weeks. I did add you into my del.icio.us account and I would like to see a digg button somewhere in your blog (http://digg.com) an RSS button will be great, but I don’t want to push too hard.

I do think that micro-multinational is only a term, a stat of mind if you like. If you use it for the process of Under Promising and Over Delivering and its work, fine. But – let’s break the whole thing to smaller chunks and see if the argument of a micro-multinational really applies to Heaven Fresh.
In its most basic function a company is, in general, any group of persons united to pursue a common interest. The term is thus synonymous with association, but more often it is used specifically to identify associations formed for profit. As such I see from your comments ” Just to make things simple, Heaven Fresh can be thought of as 6 different companies in various countries working under one name and sharing their resources to reduce the overheads thus maximize their visibility, negotiation power and the profitability.” In this most basic view, HF is one company with offices in many countries, independent – but working in unison.

I can look at the word Micro as a prefix meaning ‘small’, as in ‘microscope’, ‘micrometer’, ‘micrograph’. Also, a metric prefix meaning 10 -6 (1/1,000,000).
Can a company that you say – have “revenues are in millions and its products are sold in several different countries” Match our definition of Micro, I would argue, NO.

The amount of employees you have at the moment – really does not play into the size of company that you are (Re: sales and profitability). It only means that you conduct your business in an efficient manner.

I will not argue the last part – Multinational, obviously you are one.

I will finish with Mr. Clinton quote - Big things are expected of us and nothing big ever came of being small. I will restate his quote and say that nothing big ever came of being Micro.

Thank you,

YS; June 11, 2007 8:30:00 PM PDT
Anonymous said...: This post has been removed by a blog administrator.; January 25, 2008 4:35:00 AM PST
Anonymous said...: This post has been removed by a blog administrator.; January 25, 2008 4:35:00 AM PST
kros k said...: こけちゃだめ！; February 27, 2008 1:51:00 AM PST

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About Me

Name: Imran Bashir

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I finished my high school in Hasilpur, Pakistan and FSc from Govt. College (GC) Lahore in 1992. I graduated with bachelor degree in computer engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago in 1997. My first job was with Siemens Building Technologies in Buffalo Grove, IL. After working there for 3 years I could not handle the slow pace of a large corporation so I joined a start-up technology company called Auvo Technologies in Itasca, IL. It was an adventure to run against time and money to save our little company but alas! Auvo closed its door on September 15, 2001. Another company in New Jersey, Kirusa Inc., made me a job offer the same week. I drove from Chicago to New Jersey to experience life at the border of Manhattan. I quit my job at Kirusa in April of 2002 to start my own business of software development. While working on small projects for different clients, I stumbled upon an opportunity in March 2003 to sell air purifiers online. The air purification business, Heaven Fresh, just took off and eventually became the main business instead of a side kick. Our goal is to open Heaven Fresh offices all over the world and take the company public by 2011.