Abstract
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence/machine learning technologies (AI/ML) it is now opportune to consider the potential for these technologies to create new strategies for internationalisation. This seminar will discuss how AI can enable born-digital firms to bypass traditional methods of internationalisation, such as foreign direct investment (FDI), which rely on understanding country-level proxies for consumer behaviour. Instead, by using AI, born-digital MNEs can impute revealed preferences of individual users directly from their interactions with the firm, facilitating a new, country-agnostic approach to internationalisation. We will then discuss how this approach has the potential to generate data network effects that can be harnessed to generate competitive advantage. We conclude by exploring the applicability of these new approaches to internationalisation and competition to other businesses where digitalisation can play a role. This leads us to identify a series of industry characteristics that determine how viable it is for firms across a spectrum of industries from high to low digitalisation potential to pursue these new internationalisation strategies.
The seminar will discuss and further develop the ideas of the attached paper.
Peter Williamson is Emeritus Professor of International Management at the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School and Fellow of Jesus College. Formerly with Merrill Lynch and The Boston Consulting Group, he earned his PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University. During his subsequent academic a career, he has held professorships at London Business School, Harvard Business School, and INSEAD (in Fontainebleau and Singapore). He was elected Fellow of the Academy of International Business in 2018 in recognition of his contribution to the field.
His research covers globalisation, strategy, M&A and ecosystem innovation. He is the author of ten books. The latest, Ecosystem Edge (2020) explains how companies can build and leverage a network of partnerships the sustain competitiveness in the face of disruption. His more than 60 articles span Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, and Journal of Industrial Economics, and numerous managerial pieces in the Harvard Business Review, the MIT-Sloan Management Review, and California Management Review.
Peter has served as a non-executive director of across a wide variety of industries, including: textiles; whisky; green energy; hedge funds; software; and sales training. He is currently Chairman of the fast-growing, digital process automation and AI cloud services company Bizagi Group Inc.
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Internationalisation Process of FirmsThe Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Internationalisation Process of Firms
Abstract
With the rapid development of artificial intelligence/machine learning technologies (AI/ML) it is now opportune to consider the potential for these technologies to create new strategies for internationalisation. This seminar will discuss how AI can enable born-digital firms to bypass traditional methods of internationalisation, such as foreign direct investment (FDI), which rely on understanding country-level proxies for consumer behaviour. Instead, by using AI, born-digital MNEs can impute revealed preferences of individual users directly from their interactions with the firm, facilitating a new, country-agnostic approach to internationalisation. We will then discuss how this approach has the potential to generate data network effects that can be harnessed to generate competitive advantage. We conclude by exploring the applicability of these new approaches to internationalisation and competition to other businesses where digitalisation can play a role. This leads us to identify a series of industry characteristics that determine how viable it is for firms across a spectrum of industries from high to low digitalisation potential to pursue these new internationalisation strategies.
The seminar will discuss and further develop the ideas of the attached paper.
Peter Williamson is Emeritus Professor of International Management at the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School and Fellow of Jesus College. Formerly with Merrill Lynch and The Boston Consulting Group, he earned his PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University. During his subsequent academic a career, he has held professorships at London Business School, Harvard Business School, and INSEAD (in Fontainebleau and Singapore). He was elected Fellow of the Academy of International Business in 2018 in recognition of his contribution to the field.
His research covers globalisation, strategy, M&A and ecosystem innovation. He is the author of ten books. The latest, Ecosystem Edge (2020) explains how companies can build and leverage a network of partnerships the sustain competitiveness in the face of disruption. His more than 60 articles span Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, and Journal of Industrial Economics, and numerous managerial pieces in the Harvard Business Review, the MIT-Sloan Management Review, and California Management Review.
Peter has served as a non-executive director of across a wide variety of industries, including: textiles; whisky; green energy; hedge funds; software; and sales training. He is currently Chairman of the fast-growing, digital process automation and AI cloud services company Bizagi Group Inc.
