Multinational Corporations (MNCs) or Transnational Corporation (TNC), or Multinational Enterprise (MNE) is a business unit which operates simultaneously in different countries of the world. In some cases the manufacturing unit may be in one country, while the marketing and investment may be in other country.
In other cases all the business operations are carried out in different countries, with the strategic head quarters in any part the world. The MNCs are huge business organisations which extend their business operations beyond the country of origin through a network of industries and marketing operations.
They are multi-process and multi-product enterprises. The few examples of MNCs, are, Sony of Japan, IBM of USA, Siemens of Germany, Videocon and ITC of India, etc. There are over 40,000 MNCs with over 2, 50,000 overseas affiliates. The top 300 MNCs control over 25 percent of the world economy.
Previously American based multinationals ruled the world, but today, many Japanese, Korean, European and Indian multinational companies have spread their wings in many parts of the world. Before entering into any country, at the headquarters of MNCs, experts from various fields such as political science, economics, commerce international trade and diplomacy are analysing the business environment of a country and advising the top management.