"The Internet is making the business world over, and one of its greatest impacts is in unifying many countries' markets. It has become as easy to sell halfway across the world as it is to sell across the street. Indeed, the world has been shrunk to a very small size... and placed in the monitor in front of your PC. Many people are seeing the logic in dealing with the global market as a unified market, in the same way as Europe saw the need for breaking down country boundaries in the last few decades, and formed the European Union.
The drive for globalization is being promoted through more free trade, more Internet commerce, more networking of schools, communities and business, more email, so that we can ultimately have global integration 24 hours a day, across 24 time-zones and into cyberspace. According to a recent survey, globalization has become the top priority for 80% of American CEOs. If your company has any chance of having a competitor from another country, you have no choice but to take globalization seriously. Very seriously... before your competitor does.
""The Electronic Herd is made up of all the faceless stock, bond and currency trades sitting behind computer screens all over the globe, moving their money around from mutual funds to pension funds to emerging market funds, or trading on the Internet from their basements. And it also consists of the big multinational corporations who now spread their factories around the world, constantly shifting them to the most efficient, low-cost producers. This herd has grown exponentially thanks to the democratizations of finance, technology and information -- so much so that today it is beginning to replace governments as the primary source of capital for both companies and countries to grow.?
Countries of every shape and color are changing fast. Even third-world countries are gradually upgrading their infrastructure and even harnessing the Internet. For example, many Muslims are using the Net today to state their case. The Internet allows many budding entrepreneurs in poorer countries the opportunity to develop economically in ways that would have never been available to them if they were not wired. The Internet simply puts them in touch with opportunities and resources that they have never had before.
The conclusion is that there is no way to avoid plugging in to the new online world order, as long as a business (or individual) wants to be successful and grow. And there is no sense in resisting tendencies this massive. Recently there was more fighting against globalization in the streets (in Prague, this time). There's no sense in fighting against either globalization or the Internet. They're coming, whether you want it or not. To be against either is like being ""against the sunrise"" -- you know the sun will be coming every day, there's not much you can do about it, and you learn to live with it. The real issue is to learn to use globalization to your advantage. Companies need to learn how to mobilize global clients through the Net. It isn't as hard as it looks, but a global perspective is definitely needed.
