Global Strategy and Multinational Management

About this course

GPS 401: Global Strategy and Multinational Management How multinationals choose where to compete, how to enter, and how to balance global scale with local responsiveness. You will apply CAGE, integration-responsiveness grids, and portfolio logic using Solara Foods' 42-market footprint.

This is global business and policy for practitioners, not theory for its own sake. You will move from frameworks to evidence tables, stakeholder maps, and executive memos that survive finance, operations, and public affairs scrutiny.

Anchor company: Solara Foods, a multinational packaged foods company selling dairy alternatives, protein snacks, beverage concentrates, and cooking staples across retail, food service, and e-commerce. Revenue $3.1B, 42 markets, leadership including Amara Osei (Chief Sustainability Officer) and Omar Haddad (Global Policy VP).

Prerequisites: STR 301: Competitive Strategy. Length: 6 weeks. Assessment: 40% applied project, 35% knowledge checks, 25% reflections.

What you will be able to do

By the end of GPS 401, you should be able to:

• Diagnose sources of international advantage using industry, location, and firm-specific factors
• Evaluate country attractiveness and entry modes under political and economic uncertainty
• Design global integration and local adaptation tradeoffs for product, marketing, and operations
• Structure cross-border organizations that coordinate without destroying local speed
• Assess international partnerships, joint ventures, and ecosystem dependencies
• Build and execute a global portfolio strategy with explicit kill criteria

How the course is organized

Six units, 24 lessons (four per unit). Work in order; each lesson includes Solara worked examples, practice problems with solutions, and managerial reads.

Unit	Topic	Lessons	You will
1	Globalization Drivers And Sources Of International Advantage	4	Apply Porter diamond to Solara decisions
2	Country Selection, Market Entry Timing, And Entry Mode Choice	4	Apply country portfolio matrix to Solara decisions
3	Global Integration Versus Local Responsiveness	4	Apply integration-responsiveness grid to Solara decisions
4	Cross-border Organization, Coordination, And Decision Rights	4	Apply matrix design to Solara decisions
5	International Partnerships, Ecosystems, And Alliance Management	4	Apply partner selection scorecard to Solara decisions
6	Global Portfolio Strategy, Sequencing, And Execution Discipline	4	Apply BCG global portfolio to Solara decisions

How to study

1. Read lessons sequentially. Early units supply vocabulary and frames; later units stress-test the same choices under uncertainty and scale.
2. Do practice problems without peeking. Policy and sustainability decisions need numeric reconciliation and explicit kill criteria.
3. Carry one decision through the course. Use Whether to reallocate $40M brand spend from uniform global campaign to region-specific advantage building as a thread for your applied project.
4. Complete unit assessments after all four lessons in that unit. Knowledge checks test application, not definition recall.

Applied work

Across GPS 401 you will build portfolio pieces that compound:

• Country entry memo with CAGE scoring and entry-mode recommendation
• Integration-responsiveness matrix for two Solara product lines
• Cross-border org design brief with decision rights map
• Global portfolio review with divest/expand triggers

What comes next

STR 301: Competitive Strategy supplies strategic context; GPS 402: Business, Government and Public Policy continues the Global Business/Policy/Sustainability pathway. CAP 600: Program Capstone Studio integrates global policy evidence into your final recommendation.