Vision and Direction Equals Global Leadership

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I always knew of Margaret Thatcher as the "Iron Lady" but I never realized that her real legacy is globalization.

1925-2013: Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter whose overpowering personality, bruising political style and free-market views transformed Britain and transfixed America through the 1980s, died April 8 after a stroke, her spokesman said in a statement. She was 87.

Read the entire article about how Margaret Thatcher reshaped the modern British state in ways that reverberate globally even today.

May she RIP.

Thatcher's Real Legacy:  Globalization

Global Immersion

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Globalization is causing new and complex challenges for business leaders.  One being  - how do you lead in this new era of a borderless world?

A global leader is someone with the ability to seize different kinds of opportunities and understand the global forces creating them, says Nitin Nohria, the dean of Harvard Business School, who highlights efficiency, local responsiveness and innovation as the keys to value creation.

Learn more:  IESE Insight Bridging the Global Leadership Gap

To develop managers to work in an international context, it is important to make sure that the learning process involves an immersion in such environments, says IESE's Pedro Nueno.

The Impact of Globalization on the U.S. Wine Industry

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Mike Veseth gives three refreshingly different takes on the impact of globalization on the U.S. wine industry by using apples as an example.

One take is Juice Box Globalization, the other, Granny Smith Globalization and the last one, Honey Crisp Globalization.  All offer a unique perspective of thinking outside the (juice) box.

Don’t think that globalization is just competition from imports from other countries (although that’s part of it, of course) or just export opportunities abroad (as important as they can be). Globalization is both of them and many more influences, too.

Who is Mike Veseth?

Mike Veseth is the Robert G. Albertson Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Puget Sound. He is the author of many books, including Wine Wars (2011) and Extreme Wine (forthcoming October 2013). 

Read the entire article:  Juice Box Globalization:  The Future of Wine?

Are You Ready to Go Global?

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The New York Enterprise Report asked some of the smartest people they know what will happen for business in the coming decade. Here's what they said.  And remember: You read it at The New York Enterprise Report first!

Fast Forward:  The Year 2023

We are honored to be included in this feature under the Globalization category.

Is Globalization Shtick Getting Stale?

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Are we giving a false picture of the world?  Rajan Menon argues that we are.

But the globalization shtick is getting stale, not just because it's become a mantra, but because it gives a false picture of the world we inhabit and presents a cartoonish view of our universities. (Yes, I know all about the complaints against higher education: point taken -- to a degree, anyway.)

Let's start with what's making the world what it is -- and changing it simultaneously. No one can deny that the advances ...

Read the entire opinion piece here.

Does Globalization Cause Income Slowdown?

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David Leonhardt, Washington bureau chief of the The New York Times references Derek Thompson's response in The Atlantic to David's list of 14 potential causes of the great American income slowdown.

Check it out here.

Globalization: Rule Breaker

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The world according to the many changes taking place, including globalization.

Until quite recently, globalization was seen as a one-way street. American companies, which led the charge four decades or so ago into growing global markets, were its ambassadors — and American workers, whose wages and upward mobility were flattened, were the victims. The core idea was that globalization, technological innovation and unfettered free trade would erase historical and geographic boundaries, making the world ever more economically interconnected and alike. (Foreign-affairs writer Tom Friedman famously shorthanded this notion with the title of his book The World Is Flat.)

Read the entire article here.

Related article:  Embrace Globalization!

Globalization in 2008

Errors That Smart People Make

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From the Christian Science Monitor:

Blaming globalization

The world has had economic downturns before, but what makes this one different goes beyond mere numbers on a balance sheet. Its roots are found in the growing doubts that people are having about our increasingly globalized world ...

Good Reads: Globalization and the Glass Half Full

Retail Transformed By Globalization

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According to Sandeep Mathrani, CEO of General Growth Properties, retail real estate is being profoundly transformed by the process of globalization.

Retailers are increasingly crossing borders and competing on the international stage. Developers too are diversifying portfolios and increasingly becoming international operators, forging relationships with tenants that cross the globe.

To learn more about this, visit here.

Also, pay a visit to 2012 Retail Real Estate World Summit

America's Future Depends In Part on Globalization

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That's according to: America Needs a Makeover

“America's future—and the future of the world beyond America—depends on how well we deal with” four issues, they argue ... globalization ...

Read more here.  And Thomas Friedman is quoted.

Posted by:  The Global Small Business Blog

Where Will You Be in 2020?

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Need help mapping it out?  Start here:

Intuit 2020 Report
Twenty Trends That Will Shape the Next Decade

Our friends and colleagues over at Small Biz Labs/Emergent Research and Intuit (press release here) have done an amazing job producing a document that will serve as guide for our future.

This is a must read for anyone who wants to stay ahead of the pack on all things related to global economic growth and the power of the Internet.

Excerpt:

10.  Industrializing Countries Emerge as the New Engine for Global Growth.

Imagine a world where businesses big and small cater to a new middle class who lives outside of their traditional markets.

In the coming 10 years, consumer spending will increase in the developed world, but not to prerecession growth rates.  Aging population, depleted savings and a debt hangover will restrain spending rates for these countries.  However, the developing world will experience significant economic growth with more than 1 billion new middle class consumers fueling global consumer spending.  Successful businesses will adjust their products and services to meet the needs of these new middle class consumers.

Access report here.  A PDF file of the report is available at www.intuit.com/2020.

Posted by:  Laurel Delaney, The Global Small Business Blog

A Sense of Globalization Is Very Important

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Foreign Policy Contributing Editor Christina Larson talks with Google Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt about what makes a city smart, how not to lose $1 trillion -- and the one place he's never been. Very interesting read.

Excerpt:

How is information technology changing the world?

When I was growing up, an elite controlled the media. And the majority of the world was very, very poor, both in a resource sense and an information sense. Since then, a set of things have occurred: the digital revolution, the mobile revolution, and so forth -- of which I am enormously proud because they are roughly the equivalent of lifting people from abject poverty and ignorance to a reasonable ability to communicate and participate in the conversation.

Information empowers individuals. And it has a huge and overwhelmingly positive impact on society. Think of someone who can now get information about finance or technology, or they're in school and they can't afford textbooks but access information online. Or imagine medicine -- I mean there's just issue after issue.

Globalization has clearly been responsible for lifting at least 2 billion people from abject poverty to extremely low levels of middle class. As a result, they have greater access to education and opportunity; they are much less likely to attack you, and they're busy trying to fulfill their low-cost version of the American Dream. They're trying to buy a car.

Read the entire interview: "Googlopolis"

Posted by: The Global Small Business Blog

A Look at Business Books 2009 on Globalization

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strategy+business gives its list of Best Business Books 2009 and five of them offer insights into the changing topology of global trade and influence.

The best books on globalization this year offer insights into three directional trends that are changing the topology of global trade and influence: the deepening of regional ties across emerging markets; the continuing rise of powerful new global players; and, finally, the intractability of risk factors inherent in emerging markets and regional networks, and how best to analyze them.

Get ready to feed your global mindset and chart your business course. The five featured are:

1. The New Silk Road: How a Rising Arab World Is Turning Away from the West and Rediscovering China

2. Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation

3. India’s Global Powerhouses: How They Are Taking On the World

4. The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing

5. Riches among the Ruins: Adventures in the Dark Corners of the Global Economy (pictured above)

strategy+business's review conclusion:

An unmistakable conclusion that we share with all the books featured in this essay is the assertion that the U.S. has lost its status as the preeminent driver of globalization. Thus, we predict that two trends will typify the next phase of globalization: First, stronger regionalism in terms of deepening economic integration in areas such as East Asia, Latin America, and the Arab world will be driven by local powers such as China, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia. Second, the global playing field for firms, capital, and strategies will become much more level as Western companies lose the automatic edge they once held in trust and credibility. (See “Capturing the Asian Opportunity,” by Andrew Cainey, Suvojoy Sengupta, and Steven Veldhoen, s+b, Winter 2009.) Companies in emerging and frontier markets may not become global leaders in their own right, but they will surely be powerful players in their own domains and beyond.

Care to share other enlightening books you read on globalization in 2009? We'll highlight them here on The Global Small Business Blog.

Encyclopedia of Small Business

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Always discovering something new and in this case, Encyclopedia of Small Business with a focus on globalization; basic but still interesting nonetheless.

Some people view globalization in positive terms, as a key force in promoting worldwide economic development. But others believe ...

More here.

Shift Happens in Globalization

Two years old but worth a look (6:06 minutes). Make sure the volume is lowered on your computer before you view.

Globalization Matters

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Technology and globalization
have changed our economy forever. ~ Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina, former chief executive of Hewlett Packard, told some 2,300 members of the International Franchise Association yesterday in her keynote address at their annual convention being held in San Diego, that businesses, which she says have created two-thirds of jobs in the country, will lead the way to restore America’s faith in how business operates.

“If we’re going to get our economy working again, we have to pay attention on how to get people and small businesses to perform and prosper ... I think you are vital to the restoration of growth in our economy ... It is innovation and entrepreneurship that will lead us out of this economic crisis. Not big government, not big business, not big labor.”

Way back when in his "The World Is Flat" book, Thomas Friedman wrote about how technology and globalization have changed our lives forever.

Read more about her Carly's talk here.

Blog Series On Internationalizing Your Company

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Over at the OPEN Forum by American Express, I'm doing a blog series on internationalizing your company. Here's Part 2: Building Your Crack Export Team of what will become a 5-part series.

And the usual ... if you find it useful, say so. If not, let me know why. Many thanks.

Globalization Project

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The Harvard College Globalization Project (HCGP) is a student-run organization at Harvard College that intends to promote research and critical commentary on any and all topics related to globalization.

HCGP's work is performed exclusively by Harvard undergraduates, and it is published in a bi-annual review, each issue of which concentrates on an elected symposium topic.

Find out more here. They have a couple of country blogs worth checking out.

Smart, Full and Focused

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This looks like someone we should follow: Paul Krugman, the Princeton University scholar and New York Times columnist. He won the Nobel economic prize for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences praised Krugman for formulating a new theory to answer questions about free trade.

"What are the effects of free trade and globalization? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization? Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions," the academy said in its citation.

"He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography," it said.

Read more about Paul's background, at least as a New York Times columnist, here.