Shifting From A US-Centric to A Global-Centric Culture
One of the biggest challenges in pursuing International Growth is overcoming inertia and status quo thinking within your own company.
For so many organizations, their DNA is hard-wired with a US-Centric approach to designing, building and delivering their products. It can be incredibly difficult to shift this mindset, but it’s an essential undertaking.
A US-Centric approach is rarely borne out of ignorance or disinterest, but often a consequence of 3 common factors:
CEO Focus: if your CEO doesn’t champion international expansion or appears skeptical about international investment, this will have a trickle-down influence on all senior leaders.
Hiring Policies: your hiring policy and practices may inadvertently be limiting your ability to think global-first. Do you mostly hire employees in the US or with limited to zero international experience?
Strong Domestic Success: disinterest in global expansion is common among companies where US market success has been enormously successful. High growth rates and strong profitability may inhibit curiosity or risk-taking in new, untested markets.
But, let’s zoom out to the big picture. In the B2B SaaS world, the opportunities to grow users and revenue internationally far outweighs the US opportunity
If your role is largely international-focused, you probably have strong opinions on whether your organization is sufficiently supportive of your work. If you are constantly swimming against the tide or urging for more resources and attention, it may be because of a deeply-ingrained US-Centric culture.
Perhaps you are not quite sure exactly how supportive your senior leadership is towards your international growth ambitions. As usual, actions speak louder than words. Let’s look at some of the most common attributes of companies that tend towards a US-Centric mindset or a Global-Centric mindset:
So, if your company is US-Centric, what can you do? As it turns out, plenty!
Regardless of your role or level in an organization, there are multiple ways to infuse global thinking into the company and gradually draw attention to the opportunity and cause of a Global-Centric outlook.
Repetition and regularity are key. A once-off focus on international may create some noise but will be quickly forgotten. Create rhythms and habits that reinforce international customer and growth conversations and considerations.
1. Celebrate International Customers
Every company likes to boast how it is “customer-obsessed”. Yet, if you find that obsession doesn’t usually extend beyond the 50 states of the US, now’s your chance to bring more attention.
Ask your Customer Success team for access to some of their international customers and arrange a conversation. Understand how the use your product, what challenges they face, how they work. Create a succinct summary or video and share broadly
Has your Sales team closed an impressive international customer recently? If so, make a bigger deal of it - research the company, follow up as they start using your product and report back on their adoption. Help your Sales team write a “Win Report” that emphasizes the unique aspects of the customer and the nature of the win - including local competitors and market conditions
Create a feature request report exclusively based on international customers. While many of their requests may be universal, you’ll likely reveal geographical nuances that may have been overlooked previously. Ask your Product team to consider researching some of these key product gaps that might be holding back Sales or inhibiting your international growth
Your international customers will inevitably have unique requirements, working environments and challenges that can generate fresh thinking and innovation.
2. Create a Global Champions Award
Who are the unsung heroes that strive to improve the experience for international customers? Who goes the extra mile to solve tricky internationalization problems? Who insisted on broadening a user research study to include international customers?
A Global Champions Award is a nice way to highlight the international-focused contributions of your colleagues across the organization. This doesn’t need to be expensive or complicated:
Seek nominations from across your company for noteworthy international efforts and achievements
Select one Global Champion (individual or team) every month and present them with a modest reward (gift card / Global Champion t-shirt / etc.)
Announce and celebrate! This is the most important step - share it on a company-wide Slack channel or during an All-Hands. Make the Global Champions Award something to be proud of and a worthy recognition of rare work
By reinforcing the great work of individuals, you can spur others to emulate their achievements and help make all-things-international a valuable area to focus on.
3. Organize International Week
Choose one week per year to generate a huge internal splash around international growth, customers and the future opportunities. Use it as an opportunity to educate the company and to create excitement. The key to success is to involve people from across the organization to help structure and manage the week.
Among the activities you might consider:
Arrange for live conversations with 2 or 3 international customers
Run workshops on international design and strategy
Share product walkthroughs of your local competitors in major markets
Announce an international bug bash with prizes for the most bugs found or fixed
Ask your Research team to present an overview of some of your target markets - including user habits, trends and outlook
Share results of customer surveys and feedback from select markets - highlight what’s different and interesting
Ask your Marketing team to showcase global events, sponsorships, social media campaigns that are running internationally
Host brainstorming sessions for how different teams can contribute to international customer success
A well-run International Week can spark activity in multiple functions and create new levels of interest and curiosity in your international customers.
4. Share Your International Dashboard
As the John Doerr book recommends, “Measure What Matters”. If your company doesn’t actively have a dashboard that tracks key metrics by country, this is your opportunity to create one.
Start small and create a dashboard that reflects the most important company metrics, tracked against your top 5 markets. You should include:
Revenue and revenue growth rates
Monthly users and engagement
NPS / CSAT
Paid conversion rates
Retention / Churn rates
Once you have assembled this data, start to share as often and broadly as you can. Ideally, organize a routine monthly review of the data where you can draw attention to key movements in the metrics, ask questions to understand and seek action.
Find ways to leverage the dashboard informally. Bring up specific metrics in conversation with your CFO or Head of Sales - don’t assume they are fully abreast of your retention problems in France or your downward-trending conversion rates in Japan.
In addition to a master dashboard, consider tracking specific metrics on a short-term basis (such as quarterly), tied to a strategic initiative. This might include:
Performance (upload/download/completion speed in key markets)
Quality (defect rates in your Android app internationally)
Website-driven leads (to measure the efficacy of your localization)
Chat-initiated support inquiries (to compare across markets)
A successful outcome of this approach is that your dashboard is ultimately absorbed into the company’s way of operating and your Data Science or Operations team starts to measure and track global metrics.
5. Drive Global Innovation with a Hackweek
Does your company run a Hackweek or similar innovation activity? These are ideal opportunities to promote innovation for global success. If you have an upcoming Hackweek, start to get organized now:
Suggest an “international” theme for the Hackweek overall
Sponsor a prize for the best Hackweek project that benefits international customers
Run brainstorming and ideation sessions to identify opportunities to innovate internationally
Seek help from across the company to create international-focused Hackweek projects. Consider projects that might be entirely out of your current scope, including:
Use generative AI to create localized, market-relevant use cases for your product
Create a business case for a brand new, region-specific product
Build a product integration for a market-specific application
Offer localization capabilities within your core product offering
Experiment with alternative technical solutions to problematic performance problems
Create a “lite” mobile app for developing markets
Hackweeks can be energetic, morale-building events. Capturing and directing this enthusiasm towards international markets is an ideal way to link innovation opportunities with your company’s international strategy.
Recognizing Success
The true measure of success for shifting your culture from US-Centric to Global-Centric will be a redrawing of the table at the start of this article.
But, before that happens, look out for smaller signs that the culture is shifting. Watch for your Marketing team’s plans to expand their market focus. See if your Research team routinely includes non-US markets in their studies and surveys. Check if your Product team is talking to customers outside the US. Each step is typically self-reinforcing and will give confidence to continue.
Any cultural change requires influencers and amplifiers. Find those people in your organization and recruit them to help. This change won’t happen overnight or with one person’s effort alone.
It’s become a cliche, but mostly because it’s true: culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Before you can truly embed your international strategy, you need to focus on achieving a Global-Centric culture in your organization.