The macro landscape: Globalization from a business and consumer perspectives

One must understand what globalization is, and Weinstein (2005) refers to this as the act of integrating societies and its economy together. And this involves the movement of labor, finance, product, information, service, and ideas from one country borders to another. From this definition, one may conclude that globalization started centuries ago and notably during the British colonial era. The British were able to transfer, ideas, products, and information from the region the ruled. And this lead to its industrial revolution, which we later saw deteriorated because of increased labor cost (Smith, 1900). However, the fall of the British industrial era may attribute to the fact that the economic leaders did not explore globalization effectively. This might attribute to the fact that globalization was in its infancy and only Britain was benefiting during this period. Globalization, as the increase in the last years and brought an economic boom to countries, and we have seen an increased world expert with increased GDP in the last five years (Worldbank, nd). More so, the increase in foreign investment between countries like the US and China is mostly used to measure the rate of economic globalization.

Although, this as significant impact on the organization because they are exposed to certain forces as competition, increase not just on the local level. However, each industry segment of two countries competes as seen in the case of China and Japan. With The US is moving to China for most products, Japan is exploring another avenue in distributing its product other than the US (Naoyuki, Gordon and Brian, 2011). Furthermore, globalization affects demand, supply and how to respond to global issues, change in demographic and political development on a global scale (Ristovska and Ristovska 2014). For example, Apple may be protected by law in the US because of the stable political atmosphere. Although, investors and analyst, are paying close attention to any development in China that may stop the import of Apple product. Thus, the total and share value of Apple will be depreciated in this type of event. Using a real example, Russia moves to ban the import of western food will affect those international companies exporting food to Russia. This will ultimately, affect most Western countries on Russia list, whose GDP depends on food export (Ivana, 2015). And the impact of Globalisation, could be summarized and mostly seen in;

Increased in opportunities: For example in China, the employment level increased and allowing people to increase social and economic satisfaction.
Increased in Investment level: Business, move from one location to the other, and he helps cities to grow as seen in the case of Dubai. Thus, this attracts more investment and multinational countries to explore opportunities.
Information Transfer increased: Intellectual property is very precious, and organization is partnering with other companies to get service delivery at a faster level. More so, companies are going into partnership, to solve a problem in industries.
Economic development: New opportunities arise, especially in developing economies like India and China.
An increased, in technology, know how: The need to meet customer needs, and serve diverse population forces companies to explore disruptive innovation.
An increased competition: Competition is not just limited, to a particular region. Organization, from the different part of the world, are forced to reduce the cost of product or service. Mostly, because another company operating in some other region can deliver cheaper.

And from a customer perspective, globalization impact our culture and increase the variety of products or service delivery. From a culture perspective, individual are losing their original identity mostly because marketers are directing the message from one segment to another. For example, the western way of lives is slowly influencing the Chinese population (PBS, 2012). The western influences, make their product look appealing. Especially, since the internet aid consumers to determine the information they need in purchasing a product or service. Thus, the price of a product does not become a determining factor that enables consumer buy a product. This is because, consumers now purchase a product on the value it’s created, which may be on social status e.tc. Although, over the years we have seen debates on the positive and negative effect of globalization. Lechner (2001) summary, on this debate that some are concerned with “westernization” of cultures with the creation of “consumerist culture.” While some believe, loss of cultural diversity, should not be blamed on globalization. However, “homogenization and heterogenization may operate in tandem or even reinforce each other.” And globalization, brings about the appreciation of diversity, which will not be the case otherwise (Lechner, 2001; James, 2014).

However, in my opinion, the negative effect of globalization is the cultural identity, and uniqueness is lost to a homogenization and a new age culture that is derived from mostly America culture. Notably, the increase in globalization leads to global warming to our society. From a cultural perspective, the negative influence of globalization can be reduced or neglected. When each country, stick to their native culture, even though they benefiting from globalization (Naveen, 2012). This is by ensuring, their original culture is cemented into the DNA of its globalization strategy.

References

Ivana K, (2015) Russia to burn banned Western food [Online] Available: http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/05/news/russia­burns­banned­ food/ [Accessed: August 15, 2015]

James S., (2014) The Impact of Globalization on the Consumer [Online] Available: http://www.neumann.edu/academics/divisions/business/journal/Review2014/Scriven.pdf [Accessed: August 16, 2015]

Naveen K. S. (2012) Globalization effect on education and culture: An analysis [Online] Available: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2069155 [Accessed: August 16, 2015]

Naoyuki I, Gordon O, and Brian S, (2011) Japan’s globalization imperative [Online] Available: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/strategy/japans_globalization_imperative [Accessed: August 15, 2015]

PBS, (2013) Why China’s Youth Find Western Culture Attractive [Online] Available: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world­jan­june12­ china_02­13/ [Accessed: August 16, 2015]

Lechner, F. (2001). Does globalization diminish cultural diversity [Online] Available: http://sociology.emory.edu/faculty/globalization/issues05.html [Accessed: August 16, 2015]

Ristovska, K, & Ristovska, A 2014, ‘The impact of Globalization on the business’, Economic Development / Ekonomiski Razvoj, 16, 3, pp. 205­213, Business Source Complete, [Online] Available: www.EBSCOhost.com, [Accessed: August 16, 2015]

Smith, DA 1990, ‘The Modern World­System III: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World­Economy, 1730­1840s (Book)’, Social Forces, 68, 4, pp. 1339­1341, Business Source Complete, [Online] Available: www.EBSCOhost.com [Accessed: August 15, 2015]

Worldbank, (nd) Globalization and International Trade [Online] Available: http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/beyond/beyondco/beg_12.pdf [Accessed: August 15, 2015]

Weinstein, M. (2005), Globalization. [Electronic Book] : What’s New, n.p.: New York : Columbia University Press, c2005., University of Liverpool Catalogue, [Online] Available: www.EBSCOhost.com [Accessed: August 15, 2015]