Chapter-7
 

Global Enterprise 2020

The central thesis of this book has been that we are in the middle of a fundamental transformation in the structure of the economic, social, and political landscape around us. With each passing day, the global economy is becoming increasingly multi-polar and ever more integrated. Consider the following:

• In recent years, over 50 percent of the growth in world GDP has come from emerging markets. China’s GDP is expected to become the world’s largest by around 2030 and India’s the world’s second largest by around 2045.

• In 2007, for the first time in history, the total deal size of emerging-into-developed economies was estimated to have exceeded that of developed-into-emerging economies. The hunted are fast becoming the hunters and it is no longer obvious as to who may be the predator and who the prey.

• Emerging economies are also becoming the font of some radical innovations such as a $3000 car, a $300 laptop, and a $30 cell phone. Bharti Airtel, India’s leading cell phone operator, provides 2 cents per minute nationwide cell phone services and yet has some of the highest profit margins in the world and a market cap of over $30 billion.

• In 2007, China was the third largest producer of motor vehicles in the world after Japan and the U.S. It is expected to become the world’s largest by 2015. During the eight years from 1999 to 2007, China alone accounted for 42 percent of the world-wide growth in the production of motor vehicles. According to Goldman Sachs, the total number of cars on the roads in China and India could rise from 30m today to 750m by 2040.

Most CEOs (and their senior colleagues) are well aware that the world’s economic center of gravity is shifting from the developed to the emerging economies, in particular China and India. Notwithstanding this general awareness, very few truly grasp the magnitude and pace of change and the multi-faceted nature of the new reality. Fewer still have figured out what these developments mean for the future architecture of their company.

As with all turning points, not every enterprise will make it from here to there. Established multinationals face a particularly acute competitive threat from “new” global players who have radically different capabilities, radically different mindsets, and radically different notions of speed – combined with easy access to global capital and global talent. In this chapter, we pull together the key ideas from our analysis so far and outline what the features of a global enterprise must be if it is to emerge as one of the winners ten years from now.

We conclude the book by arguing that the successful global corporation of tomorrow will be one that figures out how to take advantage of three realties: the rapid growth of emerging markets and the increasing multi-polarity of the world economy; enduring cultural, political, and economic differences across countries and regions; and the rapidly growing integration of national economies. Organizationally, it will be managed as a globally integrated enterprise rather than as a federation of regional or national fiefdoms. And, it will be led by business leaders who have global mindsets and who are masters at building bridges rather than motes.