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June is the hottest month of the year in India. Let’s go!

For the last 18 months, I’ve had a strong sense that we need to be a global company. Or at least exploring what it means to be global. Yes, we’re a small company, and you would not be alone in wondering why we don’t just stick closer to home. There are plenty of opportunities within a time zone or two to keep us busy. And yet here we are, en route to India.

Last summer I hired a young, talented undergrad business major named Daniel Salcedo to do a two month research project to help us decide whether it made sense for us to go offshore, and if so, in which country we should begin. The conclusion was that we should, and after looking at six different countries, that we should start in India.

So why would a 40-person branding and relationship marketing boutique look to expand offshore? At the risk of giving Thomas “Flat World” Friedman even more ink, it’s the realization that no industry, whether product or service, is immune from global competition. Manufacturing, software development, customer service, accounting, even McDonald’s drive-up order-takers have seen aspects of their industry outsourced. It’s only a matter of time before marketing services are globalized. Better to be there and be prepared than get blindsided.

But learning how to manage global virtual teams to increase productivity and enhance creativity is only part of the opportunity. There is a robust economy in India that grew at 9.1% in the first quarter of this year.. Sounds like a compelling new market opportunity for the right firm.

So for the next 12 days, I will be joined by my two senior executives, Sanjeev Ahuja, VP of Client Services, and Jon Sawyer, VP of Integrated Marketing Services, on a whirlwind trip of business meetings in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, and Calcutta. As we criss-cross the country, I will blog our trip and our experiences. Stay tuned!