Globalization

2 Pages 483 Words

Domestic small-and medium-sized technology companies (SMTC) that are currently plotting their strategic direction are faced with a daunting competitive environment today. On the one hand, SMTCs are struggling to survive in the lull of a once-booming and competitive US technology market. On the other hand, should they look outside the US market, they are faced with the prospect of competing head-on with large multinational corporations that have already established a global presence.
The pervasive belief surrounding international expansion of any scale is that it is not an initiative to be launched by a company with limited resources-a belief that would eradicate the entire SMTC segment from the global technology marketplace if taken seriously. The result is that SMTCs hold off on any non-domestic activities until financial and human resources are comfortably able to accommodate a new market entry. Niko Partners, an international business consultancy for small- and medium-sized technology companies, believes that waiting for a high comfort-level would be too late for SMTCs, and in fact could mean the loss of critical competitive ground in the long term. The true first hurdle to globalization is not a resource issue but is the achievement of the strategic global awareness of how the SMTC fits into the global marketplace. Niko believes, regardless of when international expansion actually begins, all SMTCs should at least be actively incorporating an international vista into their strategic roadmaps now. For critical social theory, globalization involves both capitalist markets and sets of social relations and flows of commodities, capital, technology, ideas, forms of culture, and people across national boundaries via a global networked society (see Castells 1996, 1997, and 1998 and Held, et al 1999). The transmutations of technology and capital work together to create a new globalized and interconnected world. A technological revolution ...