Abstract for Globaliseringskonferansen, NTNU, 2005.
This paper will examine a Norwegian company’s transition from being international to becoming a global business. In the early 1980s, the company Tomra Systems ASA were well on their way to becoming an international market leader in providing Reverse Vending Machines (RVMs) for the return of empty bottles and cans. Tomra’s main selling point was providing advanced technology and affordable solutions to create a more efficient infrastructure for grocery stores and breweries.
The global marketplace posed severe challenges to this business model, when the Soviet Union started flooding cheap aluminum on the world market in mid- and late 1980s. The economical incentives for recycling cans disappeared almost overnight, and Tomra had to withdraw from the American market, and from most of Europe. In order to compete within the strong push factors of the global marketplace, Tomra then had to alter their business strategy.
Because of this pressure from the global marketplace, Tomra had to reach out and become a global company with a global vision – “Helping the world recycle”. Environmental issues have now become an integral part of the company’s products, identity and goal settings. The Brundtland Commission’s concept of sustainable development and the greening of the marketplace that took place in the late 1980s provided strong pull factors that further encouraged Tomra’s global transformation.
Tomra’s change to a global, environmental company was very successful, and the company now has 80-90% of the world market for RVMs. With Tomra’s motto of “Helping the world recycle” in mind, Tomra can be perceived as a Norwegian globalizing agent that attempts to influence global and local spaces and places. This is a different narrative of globalization than one of an “inescapable force that propels events of the 21st century”, as the conference program states – hence the reference to “Globalization in Reverse” in the title.
The paper will focus on the efforts made by the company to adapt to the push and pull of the global marketplace from 1985 to 1990. A close-up empirical study of how the processes of globalization interact with a Norwegian company’s business strategies, will give important insight in the complex interplay of global and national influences.