View the corporate profile Web pages for Nestlé [http://www.nestle.com/] and Samsung [http://www.samsung.com/] to see the various ways in which these two multinational firms are conducting their internationalization efforts. For a more detailed portrait, access Nestlé's and Samsung's 2002 financial statements, which show each firm's breakdown of sales by geographic region. (For Nestlé's financials, go to their 2002 financial statements, view page 18, and then compare their 2001 and 2002 sales results for different regions, found near the top of the page. On Samsung's financial statement, go to page 9, and then compare their 2001 and 2002 "Domestic" and "Export" figures near the top of the page.) Use the information you found to answer these questions:

1. What areas of international business activity can you identify at these Web sites?
   
   
2. In what ways do these organizations seem to be responding to global business trends? Are their responses effective?
   
   

Internet Exercise
The opening incident for Chapter 5 mentions DaimlerChrysler [http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/dccom], the multinational automaker formed by the merger of German firm Daimler and U.S.-based Chrysler. Visit the firm's Web site, and then answer the following questions:

1. Based on the information you found on its Web site, what do you think are the advantages that DaimlerChrysler receives because of its strong presence in both Europe and the U.S.? What disadvantages exist?
   
   
2. In December of 2003 the firm announced plans to partner with Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors to produce pickup trucks in a Chrysler-owned facility in Warren, Michigan. Read DaimlerChrysler's Web site for news about this alliance. What does DaimlerChrysler hope to gain? What are the risks?
   
   
3. Use the Web to investigate DaimlerChrysler's financial performance. Does their international strategy seem to be improving their performance? Why or why not?
   
   

Explore Further
Examine the Web sites of other European and American auto companies and compare their global operations and activities with those of DaimlerChrysler. An interesting comparison would be BMW [http://www.bmwgroup.com/] or Volvo [http://www.volvocars.us/], and General Motors [http://www.gm.com/flash_homepage/] or Ford [http://www.ford.com/]. How does DaimlerChrysler differ from these firms? How is it similar?