The Challenge of Globalization -- The Leader's Way, Chapter 7

Globalization business model

Globalization has led the business through 3 following stages

1. Import/Export: Focus on trading on raw material and production
2. Satellites: All the branches take the commands from the headquarter. Build branches on several countries to
• Avoid importing/exporting raw material
• Understand local people better
• Avoid import/export regulation
3. Globally integrated: This stage is similar to the satellite model. The difference is that the business initiative can come from any country (not just the headquarter country).

Globally integrated companies are both less and more vulnerable at the same time. It is less vulnerable, since a failure to execute in one country does not result in the collapse of the company. The company still operates in other countries. It is more vulnerable due to increasing more level of trust among all the local branches. An execution failure or bad reputation in one country will impact the company more greatly.

The Role of Globally Integrated Company

Globalization was seen as an exploit over poor countries. But it is in fact a change which occurs much faster than before, and poor countries simply cannot keep up with. In fact, globally integrated companies can greatly contribute to people's well being, if they act responsibly. They can help underdeveloped countries catch up with developed countries, and help alleviate environmental problems.

Globalization and Competition

Conceptually, globalization breeds competition, which should lead to benefit for all (e.g., good products at reasonable price). Competition should be a mean which takes us to the happy ending. Unfortunately, in reality, there are several bad practices which prevent us from such the happy ending.

Obvious bad practices are for example selling bad products and services, irresponsibly dumping waste in the ocean, and so on. Apart from these obvious bad practices, the hidden ones are monopoly, price fixing, and corruption. The government should step in to help alleviate these hidden bad practices and promote fair competition.

Globalization and Innovation

Innovation has become global in two ways. First, when a new product comes into the market, it is available globally. Secondly, innovation depends  on diversity.  The invention is more likely when involving various kinds of people.

Source: THE Leader's Way: Business, Buddhism and happiness in an interconnected world by His Holyiness The Dalai Lama and Laurens Van Den Muyzenberg, Chapter 7 [Read the Book Review] [Read the Next Part].
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Book or Audiobooks?

Personally, I prefer audiobooks. It's fun, and I can listen when I'm doing something else. It also makes other activities (e.g., jogging) a lot more fun. For more detail about audiobooks, please read [this post].

There is one more reason that may encourage you to go for the audiobook version. You can get it now for FREE. Audible offers you a free trial for 14 days. Even if you get the book and cancel the subscription right away (so that you don't have to pay), you can keep the book. And, don't worry if you lost the audiobook file. Just log into audible.com. You can keep downloading the over and over again.


About the summary: It takes time to finish up a book. And, when you do, sometimes, you want to review what you learn from the book. If you do not make notes as you read, you might have to go through the book once again. This can be time-consuming when you are dealing with a book. But you can still flip through the book and locate what you are looking for

However, when the material is an audiobook, it is extremely hard to locate a specific part of content. Most likely you will have to listen to the entire audiobook once again.

This book summary will help solve the pain of having to go through the book all over again.

I am leaving out the details of the books. Most books have interesting examples and case studies, not included here. Reading the original book would be much more entertaining and enlightening. If you like the summary, you may want to get the original from the source below.