The Essential Guide to Going Global

Chapter 3. Protect Your Brand at All Costs

While safeguarding intellectual property rights is the cornerstone of brand protection, international business must also focus on becoming a respected global citizen. It is imperative that you take affirmative steps to preserve not only your patents, copyrighted materials, and trademarks, but also your international reputation by paying attention to the labor and environmental practices of offshore facilities with which you do business. Protecting your brand means protecting your company’s image by taking steps to ensure that it is not soured by unsavory partners who engage in labor rights violations or lax environmental practices.

Protect Your Brand

In May 2003, the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), a Christian human rights group in Norway, charged Tommy Hilfiger with human rights abuses in connection with its alleged use of a factory located in the northern Thailand province of Mae Sot. According to NCA, the factory in question employed Burmese workers who were underpaid, overworked, and housed in deplorable conditions. Many of these workers were young women who, according to the Norwegian press, were made to churn out Tommy Hilfiger branded garments at breakneck speed. Tommy Hilfiger was taken to task by the international press for its sourcing transgressions. The only problem was Tommy Hilfiger wasn’t working with this factory. For six short months in 1999, Tommy Hilfiger had contracted with the factory under investigation but pulled its business ...