June 25th 2011 01:58 pm

Planning For The Inevitable Global Changes

Best Growth Stock The major global trends may predict without failure. Come changes in technology, the geography of the growth, the location of the population, the longevity of humans and climate. What should be done against them is clear: adapt and mitigate the negative. How is it done?

Predicting the future in less complicated than many realize. Some global trends in the business can be predicted now, without much fear of failing. Some are almost inexorable. Perhaps mistakes in the time: that rather than occurs in six years are consolidated into ten, but hardly will no longer pass. It is not a problem of knowing whether they will occur, but to establish when.

There are two actions against the inevitable. The first, no doubt, is to adapt. The second, when it comes to trends that affect the well-being, is the try to mitigate its effects.

The changes come from various fronts and all have the effect of change profoundly the way in which it occurs or is consumed in the world. A short walk through the most important allow quickly glimpse how much.

The New  Megatrends

It is clear that technology applications in the cloud will take an important part of computing, which will improve the capacity of process data and to make predictive analysis. In 2027 you can buy a processor with the similar capacity of the human brain by US$ 1.  There will be a revolution in mobility: this year, for the first time, be more queries of internet from mobile teams that from desktop computers.

In the geography of the wealth is also clear that in a world that is growing at two speeds, the emerging countries will be the architects of a very interesting global change. A middle class of a size that is unprecedented and which will consume goods and services to unsuspected rates constructed in the coming years. The figures are well speak for themselves. In Latin America in the past three years 33 million people have entered the middle class and in 10 years the increase in the population of the region will be equals to the current population of United Kingdom.

That economic improvement will result in changes in consumption patterns. Just to mention an opportunity that is generated with this transformation 70% of Latin Americans do not have a bank account.

The transformation in the consumption in a more connected world globalization is of course another trend as seen in the performance of the multinationals which have a presence in these countries. While sales of Honda vehicles fell 10% in 2009, the motorbike increased 8.5% in units for her presence in India and Vietnam.

But also companies in emerging countries will also expand its presence beyond its borders, in many cases in other countries of the South. This new form of internationalization will create a new source of wealth and most important a connection that will transform the corporate culture at the headquarters of emerging multinationals. Why, to cite only one example, in the cement company Argos rose significantly the number of French-speaking Colombians, because the company must meet the business of the ground in Haiti.

There are other trends which will shape the world. The urbanization and the increase in life expectancy.

In urbanization, half of the worlds population lives in cities but is expected in 2030 the population of the cities to grow by at least 50% and focus in mega cities. But next to the advantages that generate the economies of agglomeration, there are challenges well documented as that of abject poverty and others less known. The urbanization of our cities, subtract 7 million hectares per year, to agricultural land, said Friederich Berschawer of Bayer.

On the side of the increase in life expectancy, also come changes that seem to be more dramatic in emerging countries. The World Health Organization data allow to see that while life expectancy increased by 5.2% in countries of high income between 1990 and 2009, it increased by almost 8% in countries of low average income in the same period.

Improvements in health conditions that increase the life expectancy are available in the poorest places on the planet, with changes simple, similar to the United States in the 1950s with penicillin and sulfa drugs reduced adult mortality drastically.

Another mega trend: the environment and climate

But along with these trends in technology and economics, is a movement of pressure on the environment.

On one side is the tremendous potential of the new consumer demand, which can have a devastating effect on the planet. The United Nations warning already is well known: In the year 2050, humanity could devour approximately 140 million tons of minerals, fuels, fossil and biomass per year, three times its current appetite. The same that of the WWF, which predicts for the same year that two planets would be required as the land to meet demand if it maintains its current growth rate.

Next to that pressure on resources is causing the change in climate. This is another inexorable trend that was accelerated in recent years. The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned this week about the lack of control in the emission of greenhouse gases. The world came incredibly close to the level of emissions that should only have been reached in 2020, he told the press Fatih Birol, IEA Chief Economist.

With this, the world most certainly face in 2020 more than two degrees centigrade warming, who had predicted more than a decade ago the Intergovernmental Panel of experts on climate change.

But not only the temperature rise. There will be stronger in the climate variations. The normal Russian summer temperature is 20 degrees, but 2010 rose to 40 degrees, a fact that occurs once every 3,000 years. The tremendous floods in Pakistan last year were caused by volumes of rain which only see one every 5,000 years. Having two such unlikely phenomena in the same year.

The phenomenon is due to the thawing of the polar ice caps, which changes the salinity of the sea. Ocean currents are responsible that the salt imbalance becomes global. To test its planetary effect, says that the United Kingdom already had the coldest summer in years. Thus it says, it became clear that our climate is produced by very fragile systems and that now the world is will have to adjust to a pattern of increasingly extreme climates.

Adapt and avoid disaster

Climate change in the short term is apparently inevitable, and the first action that must be taken is the adapt. The second action is the reduce the acceleration of change, to facilitate the adaptation and then in longer terms, reverse global warming.

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