Difference between revisions of "Scenario 4 - Empire with Walls"

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==2015 - 2020==
==2015 - 2020==
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The recession was long over. The beginning of a new era was marked with stable financial market and a healthy business environment for slow yet stable growth. But the oil prices were rising steadily without any future hope of stabilizing. The fact that the peak oil was closing in, which could lead to another wave of instability in the global market, was a growing cause of sleepless nights for many. New companies in the field of alternate energy had emerged in the due course and the existing energy giants were investing heavily in innovation of new fuels for the future generation. Governments contributed by ensuring the availability of infrastructure for these companies. In many countries, governments led the initiative of installing new alternate energy industry like wind, solar, nuclear, biofuels etc. The problem of nuclear waste dumping was solved by a collaborative effort of nuclear power plant companies combining their expertise together along with government funded research institutes participating in this effort and also ensuring that the environmental and safety norms are strictly followed. The collaborative effort was due to the common goal of the industry to find a resolution for waste dumping that had slowed its growth for past many decades.<br>
The application is not effective in developing countries where regulation and rule of law is lax and business continues as normal, encouraged by growing middle class. In the past, big corporations have found it difficult to produce tailored-made products for emerging markets, preferring to transfer their current products and business processes, which offer lower margins than their primary markets. To counter this, the new companies expand on joint ventures set-up, establishing subsidiaries and partnership with local entities, allowing them to manage operations faster and with less bureaucratic challenges. Unconstrained by legacy investments in capital equipment, processes, and technology, the working environment in these markets stimulates innovations that begin to breed profit in the companies. <br>
The digital advancements like cloud computing revolutionized access to resources and helped companies accelerate innovation. The introduction of [http://www.memristor.org memristor] technology was all set to change the fate of computing and communication industry. The memristor would shrink the size of all memory and computing devices after the chip makers hit the glass ceiling with traditional transistor technology. It was also two times more power efficient and was likely to improve further. The technology invented by HP in 2008 was later opened to the industry for R&D. The current technology was saturated and memristor offered a solution for sustainable and revolutionizing future. The memristor technology could be copied easily by competitors in future and hence it was in the best interest of HP, the industry, and the society at large if the technology was developed in collaboration. Hence, the research was conducted jointly by all the major competing players in an industry collaborating to tap the enormous potential of the technology that would be one of the biggest leaps in the digital revolution. The collaborative innovation revolution widened the playing field for innovation in other industries and was vital for going green.<br>
They revamp their distribution channels to increase accessibility to middle class consumers and re-design every aspect of production, manufacturing, sourcing and delivery to reduce costs. They draw on their multicultural staff pool, the customers and R & D activities are located in close proximity to their client base and suppliers. <br>
Parallely, the intensity of natural disasters were increasing continuously. The governments and organizations were geared to take a big step in combating the effects of climate change by investing in development of innovative technology that helped reduce emissions. <br>
The activities of emerging companies like Bharti Airtel, Tata and Godrej group benefit these economies through employment, increased productivity and a burgeoning middle class. The governments implement strict financial laws to ensure economic sustainability for their country but environmental regulation is still lax. <br>
 
The new players are expanding into territories where entry rules are less stringent and lax environmental regulations and copyright laws allow for IP violations. Some of these territories bring them into direct competition with the traditional Western corporations becoming a direct threat and competition is becoming stiffer. The Big western companies switch to a companies and vertically integrate operations to drive cost-efficiency and stream line operations, focussing on their core speciality. The survivalist thinking also sees IP as sacred and as a competitive advantage through protectionism. Pressure begins to mount for stronger regulations to be implemented for IP protection for companies round the world and the need for an effective global legal framework. <br>
The expansion drive of the new players across regions involves recruitment of staff of different nationalities and cultural backgrounds, offering the companies a mix of creative talent and skills. They are able to tap into a new pool of cost-cheap knowledge and potential on which they leverage, using their own technical expertise and experience to shorten production cycles and deliver products and services quicker to the consumers. It is a recruitment strategy rapidly advancing in the developed world as part of smart acquisition and as strategic response to the emergence of the . It serves to evaluate brain activity during tough decision making process and is believed to help determine the right minds to employ for different roles and responsibilities undertaken, in any part of the world. Accenture with a quarter of their workforce from India is an example of employing a global workforce. <br>
The advancement in living standards means an increase in life expectancy and a declining work force, reduced spending and decreasing tax revenues. People are becoming more like the Japanese and saving more because the last recession was one too many, causing an erosion of trust in governments. It also gave fuel to the cries from people for the development of sustainable ways of doing business and increased awareness on environmental protection. There is now more concern about where goods and products are manufactured. This breeds a change in the demographic perception of the customer beyond traditional metrics like age, sex, location etc. It has become more about lifestyle, influences and it seems to begin a change to consumer power. <br>


==2020 - 2025==
==2020 - 2025==

Revision as of 16:03, 10 September 2010

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