Organisation
What a regional subsidiary carries
What a regional subsidiary decides, and what stays with the country
London, Addis Ababa, New York, Hong Kong, Sydney and Doha. Six addresses that look like a conventional sales org chart. They are not.
What a regional subsidiary does
A regional subsidiary first holds the group's standards: the same creation methods, the same governance requirements, the same steering tools. It then keeps the network coherent, so that a company launched in Addis Ababa reaches the shared capabilities on the same terms as one launched in London. Finally it carries the relationship with the institutions, investors and partners of its zone.
The country is the unit of execution
Opening a country is decided regionally and executed locally, under five models: direct presence, joint venture, partnership, licence or franchise. The choice depends on the legal frame, the depth of the market and whether a credible partner exists on the ground.
- direct where the market justifies its own structure
- joint venture where a local player brings the access
- licence or franchise where the brand alone creates value
Centralise everything and you understand no market. Decentralise everything and you lose what makes the group valuable.
Splitting regional governance from national execution avoids both mistakes. It also explains why the number of subsidiaries stays stable while the number of countries grows.
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