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Report from Beijing: 1
Saturday, September 28, 2002 In the next couple of weeks, I will be reporting from Beijing and Tokyo. From this vantage point, I will give EDPros an insight into global competition -- the type of competition that is shaping all of our economies now. One of the most remarkable developments I have come across is the speed with which commercial relationships between India and China are developing. Incredibly, the first ever commercial airline flight between India and China only took place in March this year. A remarkable development between the world's two most populous nations, with a combined citizenship of more than 2.5 billion. The distrust between the wo runs deep for both cultural and geo-political reasons. In recent years, the chill has begun to thaw, to the extent that New Delhi and Beijing now extol one another as partners. The commercial implications of these developments are hard to guage, but they will certainly be profound. Take the possibilities in information technology, an industry that we in the U.S. like to think we lead. India recently surpassed Ireland as the prime software-outsourcing destination of the world - a position that it wants to retain - and Indian companies have won a reputation for low-cost, high-quality software delivery. China's strength is in hardware with exports of $26.4 billion. Recently, Chinese premier Zhu Rongji painted the picture. During a recent visit to India, he told his hosts that together China and India could dominate the world's information technology markets. "You are number one in terms of software, we are number one in terms of hardware ... together we can make the world's number one," he said. What does this mean for EDPros? It means four things: 1) Expect continued global pressure on your industries, even those leading edge businesses (like IT) that we have felt were unassailable. This means that business retention and expansion programs are going to become even more critical in the years ahead; 2) Actively participate in a regional economic development strategy that put industrial innovation -- including university research and university/business ties -- at the center; 3) Get more comfortable thinking in global terms. The easiest way is to add a foreign newspaper to your regular reading. Choose something like the BBC, the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, the Singapore Business Journal; and finally 4) Build global commerical ties any way you can. Get friendly with local colletge and university faculty, so you can gain a window on these global developments through local colleges and universities. Students and faculty can open you to new ideas for commercial ties. Encourage these international exchanges to expand. (You can even start a "sister city" program.) More on these issues later. Go posted by Ed Morrison | |
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