Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Economics - International Economic Relations, grade: 100%, University of Sussex, language: English, abstract: Small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs) represent about 95% of enterprises in Europe, with a high amount of small companies ranging between 22% - 66% as well as high importance all over the globe. Nevertheless, the sector of SMEs has been ignored and poorly understood for many decades. Eventually, a research conducted by the economist David Birch published in 1979 revealed that especially SMEs are responsible for economic growth in general and are the prime source for job creation, accounting for up to 60% of the overall employment. As a result, the OECD considers them to be the core for economic growth and the dominant form of businesses worldwide in the future, acknowledging the importance of SMEs within global economy. Knowledge about small- and medium-sized enterprises has become even more important due to the fact that the interest of small firms to operate on foreign markets increased in the last decades. This essay depicts the characteristics of small- and medium-sized companies, compares it to multinational companies (MNCs) to determine advantages as well as disadvantages and, finally, examines certain opportunities for SMEs offered by globalization and internationalisation.

The managed flow of goods and information from raw material to final sale also known as a "supply chain" affects everythingâ€"from the U.S. gross domestic product to where you can buy your jeans. The nature of a company's supply chain has a significant effect on its success or failureâ€"as in the success of Dell Computer's make-to-order system and the failure of General Motor's vertical integration during the 1998 United Auto Workers strike. Supply Chain Integration looks at this crucial component of business at a time when product design, manufacture, and delivery are changing radically and globally. This book explores the benefits of continuously improving the relationship between the firm, its suppliers, and its customers to ensure the highest added value. This book identifies the state-of-the-art developments that contribute to the success of vertical tiers of suppliers and relates these developments to the capabilities that small and medium-sized manufacturers must have to be viable participants in this system. Strategies for attaining these capabilities through manufacturing extension centers and other technical assistance providers at the national, state, and local level are suggested. This book identifies action steps for small and medium-sized manufacturersâ€"the "seed corn" of business start-up and developmentâ€"to improve supply chain management. The book examines supply chain models from consultant firms, universities, manufacturers, and associations. Topics include the roles of suppliers and other supply chain participants, the rise of outsourcing, the importance of information management, the natural tension between buyer and seller, sources of assistance to small and medium-sized firms, and a host of other issues. Supply Chain Integration will be of interest to industry policymakers, economists, researchers, business leaders, and forward-thinking executives.

Our intuition on how the world works could well be wrong. We are surprised when new competitors burst on the scene, or businesses protected by large and deep moats find their defenses easily breached, or vast new markets are conjured from nothing. Trend lines resemble saw-tooth mountain ridges. The world not only feels different. The data tell us it is different. Based on years of research by the directors of the McKinsey Global Institute, No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Forces Breaking all the Trends is a timely and important analysis of how we need to reset our intuition as a result of four forces colliding and transforming the global economy: the rise of emerging markets, the accelerating impact of technology on the natural forces of market competition, an aging world population, and accelerating flows of trade, capital and people. Our intuitions formed during a uniquely benign period for the world economy -- often termed the Great Moderation. Asset prices were rising, cost of capital was falling, labour and resources were abundant, and generation after generation was growing up more prosperous than their parents. But the Great Moderation has gone. The cost of capital may rise. The price of everything from grain to steel may become more volatile. The world's labor force could shrink. Individuals, particularly those with low job skills, are at risk of growing up poorer than their parents. What sets No Ordinary Disruption apart is depth of analysis combined with lively writing informed by surprising, memorable insights that enable us to quickly grasp the disruptive forces at work. For evidence of the shift to emerging markets, consider the startling fact that, by 2025, a single regional city in China -- Tianjin -- will have a GDP equal to that of the Sweden, of that, in the decades ahead, half of the world's economic growth will come from 440 cities including Kumasi in Ghana or Santa Carina in Brazil that most executives today would be hard-pressed to locate on a map. What we are now seeing is no ordinary disruption but the new facts of business life -- facts that require executives and leaders at all levels to reset their operating assumptions and management intuition.

Online business has been growing progressively and has become the major business platform within the past two decades. The internet bulldozed the development of new business models and innovations that substantially changed the way businesses run today. This led to a growth of advanced technologies used in online business such as data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. With higher internet connectivity and the exponential growth of mobile devices, shopping processes and behaviors were significantly affected as people are consistently connected online. Consumers can easily gain helpful product information and retail competitor information in myriad online channels. This led to a profound effect on businesses where they began to invest in new technologies and business practices that aim to align with the effects of globalization. Given the rapid technology advancements, both businesses and customers are presently experiencing an exponential upsurge in the implementation of new business processes and models. Impact of Globalization and Advanced Technologies on Online Business Models explores the ever-changing field of running an online busines and presents the current issues and challenges in online business triggered by global shifts in the online environment and technological changes. The chapters draw from a wide range of technologies used in today’s digital marketplace as well as recent development and empirical researches on online consumer behavior. As such, this book aims to contribute new dimensions in managing advancements in online business triggered by global and technology transformation. This book is ideal for executives, managers, IT consultants, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in globalization and the new technologies affecting online business models.

Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.

Globalization and Development draws upon the experiences of the Latin American and Caribbean region to provide a multidimensional assessment of the globalization process from the perspective of developing countries. Based on a study by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), this book gives a historical overview of economic development in the region and presents both an economic and noneconomic agenda that addresses disparity, respects diversity, and fosters complementarity among regional, national, and international institutions. For orders originating outside of North America, please visit the World Bank website for a list of distributors and geographic discounts at http://publications.worldbank.org/howtoorder or e-mail [email protected].