The world economy is changing at neck breaking speed

I think the future of the world economy is going to look quite a bit different from the world we live in today, and very much so from the one our parents lived in. I’m pretty sure this does not come as a surprise to most people, particularly in these days we’re living where many aspects of life we took for granted are being redefined by a pandemic.

This thought has given me a lot of interest in understanding the ways business takes place in other sides of the world - China and India have demonstrated an accelerated growth over the past few years, and their hold of the world economy is growing at a staggering pace.

Globalization is no longer a business concern, but a component of every day life.

That trend is quickly moving from the realm of the enterprise with the world’s supply chain and enterprise information technology services increasingly dependent on these economies, into the end realm of the consumer.

We see Baidu, TikTok and FlipKart disrupting the market share held with what some would have considered the unbeatable grip of some American companies.

One of those stories, perhaps the most impressive one, is that of Alibaba - which is why I picked up Alibaba’s World by Porter Erisman from the shelves of a local bookstore.

David beats Goliath

Alibaba’s story shows a juxtaposition of two extremes, humbleness of character and grandiosity of thought, and one can’t quite speak of Alibaba without referring to its founder, Jack Ma, a simple yet unique man who is the personification of that very contrast.

This balance of extremes becomes quite evident in a recurring theme in Alibaba’s strategy: use your opponents arrogance or defensiveness to your advantage. More than once did the company’s strategy encourage public relations confrontation by betting on the offensive and self-serving bias of its opponent.

This is one of the key learning points I was able to identify from Alibaba’s journey, if you respect and acknowledge your origins and your people, and leverage those to your advantage, you will be able to identify many opportunities to beat much larger opponents that will fall by their own weight, humility is David’s stone, and over-confidence Goliath’s weakness.

One size does not fit all

Globalization sometimes reinforces a “flattened view” of the world, a result from social and corporate media which, in tandem with our own nature to interpret others through our own life’s experiences, inevitable gives us a skewed perception of that which is distant to us.

In reality the culture, geography and economy around business are what define it, and that context is not always (some would say hardly ever), the collection of news and data you get from most media.

For true global exchange of services and revolutionary ideas, one size does not fit all, and concepts must be adapted and transformed to accommodate the nature of each individual context, and the only way for any entrepreneur or leader to become aware of it is to embrace and immerse.

Where I struggle

I do have difficulty in understanding some aspects of what seems to be business as usual during Alibaba’s early years: early staff members lived in precarious conditions and were seemingly oblivious to health and life balance while dedicating themselves to their work.

The media repeatedly exposes this pattern, there have been a good deal of news that expose terrible working conditions by some Chinese businesses and it seems, at least at the beginning, Alibaba was not an exception.

I admit though, the above comment is not based on personal experience nor deep understanding of the cultural roots that defined the business, and are influenced by media, both aspects that as I mention just a few paragraphs back, skew my perspective.

A good start

I think, in my journey to understand business elsewhere, Alibaba’s World is a good start. It’s a short read, written by somebody that shares some of my cultural background, Porter Erisman is an American man experiencing Alibaba and business in China as a foreigner - this is definitely a good starting point to what is evidently going to be a much larger quest where business is nothing but the result of a rich and complex combination of localized human culture and history.

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