Corporations must be globally integrated to take advantage of the opportunities that abound in the worldwide marketplace, according to Sam Palmisano, former CEO of IBM.

A globally integrated enterprise, he notes, means the company is considered global in their management and operations rather than multinational.

"In this model, work is organized in fundamentally different ways. It calls for different skills and behaviors, more collaboration, greater focus on a multiplicity of cultural differences and less hierarchy," he writes in a commentary for CNBC. "Human capital is thought of not in terms of countries and regions and business units, but rather how to manage and deploy it as one global asset.

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Palmisano offers three suggestions for corporations seeking to integrate their activity around the world.

1. "You need to be globally consistent but locally relevant." Companies must tailor their products to local consumers, "while ensuring that the brand's value proposition and the principles guiding the company are the same everywhere," he writes.

2. "Learn from below." Management can gain valuable knowledge by tapping into the knowledge of employees at all levels of the company, Palmisano explains. "Leaders can't afford to be insulated by a protective inner circle that shields them from information they think will be unwelcome."

3. "Create a common culture around common values." Companies need to focus employees on the same set of values around the world, Palmisano argues. "And the values will be more meaningful if the entire workforce is consulted on what they should be."

He adds, "If companies want to differentiate themselves and compete in this globally integrated environment, they have to be willing to reinvent themselves. . . . And they have to be willing to tolerate the critics who tell them they're making a big mistake."

As for Palmisano's former company, IBM, Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom gives it high marks.

"IBM holds a defensible position in enterprise software, services and hardware," he writes on Morningstar.com. "While each of these businesses is an industry leader in its own right, the combination of these products and services provides the firm with an unrivaled solution creation and delivery ability that is the key to its wide economic moat."

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