Tag: Globalisation

Micro states, like Monaco, depend for their existence on the acquiescence of their larger neighbours.

If Venice were owned by the Disney Corporation, Venice would not be in peril. The city is threatened by crumbling infrastructure and rising sea levels, and by inexorable growth in the number of visitors. Gates that let the tourists in pay for gates that keep the water out.

Managing the process of globalisation requires that those who gain from it compensate those who lose. Otherwise we risk not only the rise of protectionism but a loss of social cohesion: both these problems are already evident.

The states of Western Europe are the first states in history in which insiders represent a large proportion of the population. So every presentation of the reform agenda simply provokes the opposition of the majority and the victims are those who can never hope to become insiders.

Consumer goods markets are fickle and in a standards war, the best man does not necessarily, or often, win. Victory goes to the company that achieves a large installed base quickly.

The protracted battles to provide internet access or control the obsessions of players of computer games are the Thirty Years Wars of the business world, with advantage switching frequently among shifting alliances.

A jurisdiction benefits from forum shopping if its decisions are out of line with mainstream opinion, and the most common reason is that there is something wrong with its legal system.

The battle for the London Stock Exchange has all the structure of a Jane Austen novel. Miss L.S.E., - a great name and the inheritor of a great tradition. It wouldn’t be the first time though that a suitor has to pay a high price for little more than a grand title. But such purchasers often do not regret their choice.

The Crisp Wars represent a slice of British cultural history. The business lesson is that success in these markets demands genuine skills of brand and category management

The peculiar characteristic of markets with standards is that quality is not important to commercial success. But while Global English has become the lingua franca, native speakers are now less internationally useful than their bilingual colleagues, and English firms have similarly lost a source of advantage.