Multinational Business Strategy

BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE DRIVERS OF GLOBALIZATION

2006

British Telecommunications and the Drivers of Globalization

Introduction

Globalization is a phenomenon most often discussed among economists Most of us have often heard that business is no longer restrained by political or cultural boundaries . Multinational Enterprises (MNEs expand with little regards of geographical or cultural distance among their target markets . All decisions within a company are made with the additional consideration of how the international world will affect the results of that decision , a factor that most businesses ignored in some

earlier decades

As indicated above , discussions about globalization are mostly about its effects toward the business environment , rather than its causes Companies are more interested toward how a phenomenon will affect their financial conditions rather than where or what the phenomenon is actually coming form . Within this however , I will discuss several drivers of globalization . The drivers will be taken from various perspectives about globalization . To provide more connection to the international business environment , we will use the British Telecom , one of the most successful MNEs in the global communication industry , as a reference to help define and justify the drivers of globalization

Furthermore , this will discuss the view of whether MNEs are actually competing globally or only regionally . There are arguments among scholars that the global economy do not actually existed Globalization has taken us through national boundaries but it stopped in regional limits . In other terms , MNEs are not actually operating with global factors within their considerations , but rather regional factors This view will be examined as we discuss the development of British Telecom Literature Review

II .1 Corporations as Principle Drivers

According to Ron Blackwell (2002 , corporations are the principle drivers of globalization . In the process of increasing their market share , corporations found that they need to expand further that their national boundaries allowed . While rapidly internationalizing their operations , most corporations fundamentally altered their structure and strategies , boosting the change of their national economy into a more globalize economy

This phenomena might not be observable in the US or European soil because the process of corporations breaking through national boundaries have occurred several decades ago . However , the phenomenons are still happening today within the Asian and other developing economies Economist have long predicted that Asia will be the center of massive economic growth in the near future , and the prophecy is fulfilled as China and India are increasingly integrated to the global economy

II .2 Political , Technological and Social Conditions

III .2 .1 Market Oriented-Policies

Beside the principle factor mentioned above , many arguments brought forward other causes of globalization . One of the popular ones is the influence of market-oriented policies . In China for example , the change of governmental policies regarding foreign investment and trade was the greatest factor that supported growth of the economy . Several decades ago , China was a country considered to have a `closed economy . Today the country is the largest recipient of the world 's Foreign Direct Investment and recognized as the most...