Koch
CEO Says Globalization is Key
Evansville businessman
to address Junior Achievers on March 1
Saturday,
February 17, 2001 By
BYRON ROHRIG, Courier & Press staff writer
In a sense, "global" has been part of the scheme
of things for Evansville's Koch Enterprises Inc. for "maybe 30
years," said Robert Koch II, the company's president and chief
executive."That's how long we've had business relationships with
partners in other countries," Koch said. But
until five or six years ago, those global relationships "were
pretty much not significant in the overall scheme of our business,"
he said.
Times change.
"It has
become evident that we have to become more of a global company in
order to compete in the marketplace," said Koch, whose company
made Forbes magazine's Top 500 Privately Held Corporations list
in November 2000.
Koch intends
to focus on globalization when he keynotes Junior Achievement's
"Spirit of Free Enterprise Breakfast" on March 1 at The
Centre in Downtown Evansville.
The event, which
begins at 7:30 a.m., serves as the kickoff for Junior Achievement's
annual major gifts campaign.
Besides corporate
sponsors and potential donors, Koch's anticipated audience of 100
will also include Junior Achievers from Oak Hill Middle School,
where a well-established JA program is in place.
Koch said he'll
note how his company now uses the Internet to pursue its goal "to
deliver on four continents consistent, uniform quality."
Citing Koch
Enterprises subsidiary Gibbs Die Casting, for example, Koch described
how he now can use the Internet "to pull up what production
is in any of these plants, the quality they've been running, the
efficiencies they've been running, how much metal they've processed."
But he said
he'll also emphasize that success in the global economy requires
both technical and cultural fluency. And that means the traditional,
liberal arts education is as vital as ever.
"I think
education is important to flourish, even to survive, in a global
business environment," Koch said. "I think it is important
for education to be a blend of the liberal arts part ― and
world cultures, particularly ― along with schooling in the
technical, business or other aspects of a company's effort."
He called world
cultures "extremely important" to the background of the
the prospective employees Koch is seeking.
"And we're
looking for people who are willing to move out of the Tri-State
for a year and move to Hungary or Korea or Brazil," where Koch
operations are located.
"And that's
not just for our technical people or managers ― we're needing
people at all levels of the operation who are willing to (work abroad),"
Koch said. |
