The Future Leader

9Globalization

Globalization is defined in many ways. I like to think of it as making the world a smaller place in which the language you speak, the currency you transact in, where you are located, and the culture you subscribe to are no longer barriers to doing business. The world is becoming like a big city and today every company can be a global one.

There used to be a time when the things we created, the ideas we had, the currency we used, and the culture that we subscribed to came from and stayed in one particular part of the world. Over time this expanded. Merchants and explorers traveled to different lands, bringing new cultures, ideas, currencies, and things with them. Migrants started relocating and soon our little village became connected to many villages. Fast forward to today and now our goods and services, financial markets, and technologies are intertwined with many countries globally. You may live in the United States and have a car imported from Japan, eat at a local German restaurant, buy meat imported from New Zealand, wear clothes made in Thailand, use technologies manufactured in China – you get where this is going.

People, ideas, technology, information, and pretty much anything else you can think of has become dynamic, like a never-ending flowing river or perhaps more like raging rapids. Nothing stays in its place, and with the continued advancement of technology all of these things are traveling faster, more cheaply, and more efficiently to every corner ...