Where Will You Be in 2020?

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

Foreign Policy Contributing Editor Christina Larson talks with Google Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt (pictured) 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"

Caricature drawing credit above of Eric Schmidt can be found here.

Posted by: The Global Small Business Blog

A Look at Business Books 2009 on Globalization

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

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.

Photo (unrelated): Eartha, The World's Largest Revolving and Rotating Globe

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.