Globalisation accelerates despite protectionism

GLOBALISATION IS viewed by top executives at leading organisations around the world as an inevitable, but positive, business challenge that is here to stay and rapidly growing, according to an in-depth study of business leaders revealed by EquaTerra and World 50 today.
The findings also reveal that politically-led trade protectionism, or a major economic downturn, are seen by study participants as the only major threats to the continued growth of globalisation. Nevertheless, despite these perceived threats, 90 per cent of the 217 executives questioned saw globalisation as inevitable, indicating trade protectionism or an economic downturn will not ultimately stop, or even slow, globalisation’s expansion. In fact, 72 per cent agreed it is likely to have a positive overall impact on their companies.
The study, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit for EquaTerra, a business advisory firm, and World 50, a knowledge-sharing community for C-level executives, assessed the perceptions of global competition and the challenges of expanding one’s global footprint in detail, according to over 200 leading executives and senior managers from the Americas, Western Europe and the Asia Pacific.
Executives based in North America were 12 per cent more likely than their European counterparts to cite globalisation as making it more difficult to find and retain local staff with required skills and experience, highlighting current issues in the tight North American labour market. While finding and retaining talent is still a big issue for those in Western Europe, their two primary challenges are funding expansion into new markets and growth of competition.