WORTH READING The Next Global Stage Challenges and Opportunities in Our Borderless World We live in a truly networked and interdependent world, united by a global economy. In the past, business and economics were like plays (maybe by the same author) performed in separate theaters to discrete audiences. Their actors and actresses were distinct, and their manner of performance was often influenced by the individual Theater’s tradition. Now the drama takes place on one enormous global stage. The players on this stage are sometimes in competition for the audience’s attention, but movements across the stage are free flowing, no longer obstructed by obsolete stage furniture. The global stage is in a state of perpetual motion. The Next Global Stage provides a script to negotiate your route through the shifting plot lines. This has been made possible by advances in information technology. Data now passes freely from one side of the world to the other, along fiber-optic cables or satellite transmissions. Information defies barriers, whether physical or political. It is facilitated by the establishment of platforms for streamlining the application of technology to definite tasks. Powerful search engines, such as Google, make it possible to find and combine unrelated pieces of information in the digital labyrinth. In the analog society, discrete pieces of information had to be humanly spliced together to draw out meaning. Now, mindless robots running through millions of interconnected computers are capable of putting together the synthesized information and implications in a matter of milliseconds. Information from 8 billion Web pages (as of January 2005) is amalgamated to draw a synthesized perspective and knowledge in a split second. In the past, it took a wise man or an experienced journalist to relate one piece of information with another, but now any layperson can find relationships among many seemingly unrelated events and incidents by throwing multiple words into a search engine. In the past, chemists searched relevant articles in Chemical Abstract, an authoritative and massive collection of all the work by chemists around the world. Stock buyers and traders searched key information using Bloomberg, Reuters, Telerate, Nikkei, or other influential sources in their particular country. Now Google or other such search engines are the common portal. Chances are, most of the information—or, at least, the clue to the information—you are looking for exists in digital form. So, mankind has migrated into the borderless and digital world without an official opening ceremony at the new global theater. The global theater has many world-changing implications, some already being put into effect in countries such as China, Finland, and Ireland. The global economy ignores barriers, but if they are not removed, they cause distortion. The traditional centralized nation state is another source of friction. It is ill equipped to play a meaningful role on the global stage, whereas its component regions are often the best units for attracting and retaining prosperity. The region-state is the best unit of prosperity on the global stage, but this can be enhanced by coming together informally in larger umbrellas, such as the European Union, which can enhance free trade, consistency of governing laws, and market integration. The revolution in data-transfer technology has already had an impact on the nature of money and capital movement. Money can flow unrestricted to the areas of highest return. Old notions about corporate value are challenged by the growing influence of multiples and derivatives. A lot of traditional thinking on economics depended on national policy. In countries where outside world influences strongly affect the domestic economy, old economic theories do not hold up. Consider the two very different economic crises in Argentina over the last decade. The first put the whole country, as well as plenty of outsiders, into a state of panic; the second did not. By the time of the second crisis, most people associated with Argentina, both insiders and outsiders, depended less on its domestic currency, the new peso, because most of them had converted their assets into the dollar, a global standard for savings and settlement. If, as I believe, the global economy is powered by technology, then knowledge is its precious metal. India’s strength, for example, can be substantially attributed to the sheer volume of its Ph.Ds in science. Emerging nations can propel economic growth through education. An area no longer has to be endowed with mineral wealth or a large population, or a strong military, to become a major player on the global economic stage. It can acquire its wealth and know-how through investment from the rest of the world beyond its borders. This must no longer be seen as a threat, but as a source of immense opportunities. Although the global economy presents opportunities, there are also challenges to be faced by government, businesses, and individuals. These can only be met by adopting flexibility and pragmatism.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 17:03:57 +0000
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