globalEDGE Blog - Page 210

Without government involvement, Indonesia is experiencing good times with one of the highest economic growth rates in the world. Needless to say, things could have been even better if the government provided assistance to help the economy and take Southeast Asia’s largest economy to a whole new level. It has been estimated that if Indonesia made certain changes to its economy, each citizen would be more than forty percent wealthier by 2030. Also by this time, if it has the right reforms and remains on this path, it would be the world’s sixth largest economy. The main areas of renovation would be the outdated infrastructure along with the increase in bureaucrats.

Deemed export compliance can sometimes be a confusing subject matter. However to help you better understand exporting, Amber Road has a free webinar discussing export compliance from a university perspective. The webinar will address many topics including how to use technology to automate the export compliance process and will feature guest presentations. This free webinar takes place on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EDT. To find out more information and to register for this online webinar event, please click here!

As globalization affects international business in almost every way possible, it also affects education to great extents. International education is on the rise as the demands of a globalized world bring the need for students to understand broader issues around the world. Students, the future business leaders of tomorrow, have become more mobile than ever in search for global experiences and job opportunities overseas. In past years, many students moved abroad to study in developed economies such as the United States and United Kingdom. However, that trend is starting to shift as many people believe the booming economies in the East offer more job opportunities than the West.

As most of Europe still feels the fiscal repercussion’s from the debt crisis, some companies are leveraging this to target the fiscally conservative consumer. Consumer spending power has declined which means companies are pressed to find ways to squeeze every penny out of the consumer. Many companies are changing the packaging of products to accomplish this.

Back in 1965, Fred Smith wrote a paper for his Yale undergraduate economics class that proposed an overnight package delivery service in which one carrier would be responsible for a piece of cargo from pick-up to delivery. This idea was unorthodox in the delivery of packaged materials at the time, as cargo shipment in the supply chain was handled by a multitude of companies. Smith received a grade of “C” on the assignment, because the professor told him that the idea was “not feasible”. Fast forward nearly 50 years, and Fred Smith is the founder/CEO of FedEx, a $28 billion company that transformed the way packages are delivered. His idea would revolutionize the package transportation industry, but this was not an overnight success story; at one point the company was kept alive by Smith turning the company’s last $5,000 into $27,000 with a gambling trip to Las Vegas. The packaging industry as a whole has changed a lot in the past few decades, thanks in part to massive innovation brought on by people like Fred Smith.

We were always taught not to judge a book by its cover, but packaging experts know that building a positive connotation and allure around a good is crucial to its marketability.  Companies take many factors into consideration when packaging their product: environmentally responsible, flawless presentation, exceptional quality/quantity, and cultural sensitivities.  Balancing the variables of material, size, imagery, color, and design is the challenge facing most firms.  And they only amplify as companies expand to the global marketplace.

In 2010, countries around the world engaged in a race to the bottom to devalue their currencies in hopes to boost exports and thus foster economic growth. Now in 2012, fears of another currency war have arisen again after the Federal Reserve announced the third round of quantitative easing which has caused many to believe that the U.S. dollar will weaken. It’s still unknown if central banks in other countries will respond by keeping the value of their currency low relative to the dollar. The main goal of weakening a currency’s value is to increase exports by making goods cheaper in relation to other countries. So what exactly does this mean for international business?

In an era where globalization perpetually extends the frontiers of international business, a company's ability to have their products reach markets in developing, or even remote, locations has become an increasingly important factor for success in global markets. Statistics support this claim, seeing as the share of gross domestic product as a percentage of the international market in 2012 has clearly shifted from developed countries to nations just emerging in the global economy. This trend has resulted from the growing middle classes of third-world economies having the ability to purchase goods for a higher quality of life, such as safe food, clean water, and secure pharmaceuticals. The astounding international demand for consumer goods has elevated the packaging industry to deliver these goods in frontier markets, while simultaneously trying to reduce their environmental impact during this time of expansion.

Packaging is seldom thought about throughout the course of the day, yet we come into contact with some form of packaging constantly. For as long as there has been goods that needed transportation there has been packaging – beginning with woven baskets and ceramic vases. Throughout the centuries since then packaging has continued to evolve, and continues till this day.

A few days ago the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released their World Economic Outlook. That report release and much of the data itself wasn’t surprising. What was surprising, however, was the fact that the IMF provided data showing that they were wrong about forcing austerity measures on countries.