The ability to balance between economic development and availability of natural resources towards sustainable development is indeed a major challenge in international business. One of the contemporary issues affecting international trade is the concept of global warming.
Although the understanding of global warming is highly contested, the revelation of its related impacts has created a critical niche that demands redress from all concerned parties.
At this point, there are some major questions that remain unclear and yet to be answered. For instance, what are the actual causes of global warming? What are its key effects on international business? How can it be addressed and by who? It is also notable that the author of this article emphasizes on the critical role that global warming will play in determining the future business operating environment. It is against this backdrop that this article takes an intrinsic evaluation of global warming and its impacts on international business.
This article brings out the paradox that is presented by global warming in international business environment in the modern society. The author argues that unlike the normal expectation that comes with the notion of global warming and business, a nation like Britain sees global warming as an opportunity to grow its businesses and tourism industry (The Economist par. 1).
The fact that potential risks can be turned into viable business opportunities has led to greater concentration and shift as governments seeks to assess the advantage of global warming.
The author posits that many nations in Europe perceive the upsides of global warming to include warmer summer and winters an attraction for more tourists, a favorable weather for growing Blueberries for local and international use and an opening for Pacific and Asia sea routes when ice in the Arctic Sea melts. The author asserts that global warming to these nations is an opportunity for the growth and development of international business.
However, the author is quick to indicate that global warming has been a major distressing issue that should not be embraced on the basis of business development (The Economist par. 5). Global warming cause greater havoc that returns from businesses cannot compensate.
Flooding alone in Britain presently causes damages worth £1.3 billion and may rise to £ 12 billion in the near future if the current notion is maintained. In other nations, the effects of global warming on international business outweigh the opportunities created and vast benefits thereof.
The effects of global warming have increasingly become evident to the global business communities due to massive negative impacts. Regardless of the perspective of Britain on global warming, tourism businesses are perhaps the hardest hit by the negative impacts of global warming. Due to the constantly increasing temperatures, water held in the glaciers is thawing faster than the normal hydrological rates.
As a result, most of the coastal and low-lying beaches of touristic interest such as Venice, New Orleans, South Africa and Indonesia have been threatened by the fast rising levels of water. Taking into consideration that many countries such as Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic and others in the Caribbean have 15% of their GDPs dependent on tourism, global warming has been predicted to spell major disasters to them.
Extreme weather conditions spell disasters to both national and global economies. Particularly, tropical weather systems have been predicted to get worse, a consideration that spells critical disasters. The author outlines key uncertainties brought about by the extreme weather patterns and emphasizes on the need for urgent responsive measures.
As the problem of global warming shifts to a global disaster that might may soon get out of hand, the emerging evidence has invoked the need to address it by all stakeholders. Businesses and business communities have the largest role in facilitating the needed change. To begin with, businesses have been advised to shift from the current high reliance on fossil fuels to more renewable forms of energy.
This option is highly effective in addressing the problem in that it creates an alternative model of their continued production and therefore sustainability. In partnership with respective governments, businesses are shifting to energy generated from solar, wind, geothermal, water or biological sources.
For businesses involved in products derived from forests, it is essential that they seek alternative materials as raw materials for their products. They should particularly seek to reuse waste products from the ever growing populations in making their final products. Lastly, facilitating regeneration of forests will create a stronger carbon sink base and therefore withdraw some of the atmospheric carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Hough, Jack. Apple at $500: Is It Time to Double Down—or Walk Away? 25 Feb. 2012. Web.
Apple is one of the fastest growing technology companies in the world today and although it is considered as the largest in the United States by stock value, experts have predicted a huge room for future growth. As evident from its recent growth of 73% in sales volume and given that its shares stand as some of the highly priced selling at approximately fifteen times its four-year earnings, many companies in the world have expressed curiosity on this growth trend.
Investors have expressed constant worries on its slow pace acquisition of market growth, predicting that its shares should have reached a minimum of $700 and not the current value of $500. Under comparison with Microsoft growth in the late nineties, Apple’s profit is tripling the latter’s earnings and this should be taken as a great opportunity for faster growth presently (Hough para. 2). On this note, the main concern has been on attracting international investment from potential investors.
Given that Apple does not provide dividends for shareholders at the end of each fiscal year; its base capital has been quoted to be worth more than the company needs for market expansion. Failure for dividend provision has led to shunning investors. There are several strategies that have been proposed for gaining market share. First, serious considerations are underway to make provisions for dividends after closure of each financial business year.
Secondly, market analysts have suggested policy changes within the company or consideration for sale of the company. The latter has been considered to be more viable than the former but conservatives have expressed hope in company retention and consequent product differentiation of mobile phone products quoting the recent 52% run up on mobile market share.
This article has several relations to international business. To begin with, brand perception is likely going to change if the selling proposition sails and thus affect market performance. Secondly, differentiation on mobile phone products will compress the company’s ability on diversity and create limited international attraction.
These have created a lot of challenges in decision making process and thus a problem lies in raising the best strategy for faster growth. Whether it should be sold or differentiate on mobile phone products, resultant decisions would highly influence its future growth through investor attraction.
Therefore, decision makers who include shareholders, company executives and the board of directors, have been faced with difficulties in reaching a final decision on strategy for market growth.
It is not easy for such a huge company to reach such decisions with a lot of ease. Through market research, it is necessary to understand the long term effects of such decision. In my view, there is need for consideration of future impacts of rushed decision-making on market expansion. Competition should not be aimed at instantaneous overtaking of current market giants such as Microsoft, but to create a strategy for steady and positive future market growth to dominance (Peterson 55).
Ray, Tiernan. Game Plan for HP. New York, NY: Barron’s Cover, 2012. Print.
HP has been a leading computer company in the world for many years. Recent leadership problems have led it to a drastic drop in its market position. Today, the former leading PC producing company trails behind in many products. Past decisions such as avoidance of competition in developing world which led to decreased ability for global competition created room for competitors to expand.
For instance, through its ignorance of emerging markets, Lenovo was able to easily gain market dominance, hence increased revenue. Its decision to abandon the production of tablets, which are quoted as some of the fastest selling products in today’s technological world, have also led to a drastic drop in volume sales of PC sales.
Its enterprise sector which comprises of Intel-based processors and Ethernet stands as one of its greatest pillars in computer market. Accounting for more than 25% of total, the sector faces stiff competition from emerging gigantic competitors such as CISCO systems.
Although HP still stands as one of the leading companies in the world, past executive decisions have affected it negatively. Therefore, the new CEO, Whitman, is faced with a lot of challenges in making the appropriate decisions to oversee its revival. Contention has remained on the best strategy that can be put in place towards reviving HP to its position as the world’s leading computer and technology company (Ray para. 2).
This problem has several international relations in sale of technological products. Since he is currently caced with tough challenges; Whitman finds it hard to make an appropriate decision that would ensure the revival of HP to attract wider market interest.
Market expansion through company acquisitions in the past has not proved to be productive in terms of expected results. Product abandonments have also lead to decreased revenues. Therefore, as a decision maker, the present CEO is entitled to be keen market on observation to ensure that correct perception is achieved and thus appropriate revival decisions are made.
In my view, this would involve consideration of future computer and other technologies to be incorporated as strategic growing step. The current challenge is on the appropriate decision to increase sales volumes at HP. Due to the need to understand historical development of the company and some of the challenges that have faced it in the past, appropriate decisions involving present and future technologies will ensure an appropriate game plan for the company (Peterson 53).
Works Cited
Hough, Jack. Apple at $500: Is It Time to Double Down—or Walk Away? 25 Feb. 2012. Web.
Peterson, Simon. International business trends. Chicago: Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.
Ray, Tiernan. Game Plan for HP. New York, NY: Barron’s Cover, 2012. Print.
The Economist. Climate change: heating up. 26 Jan. 2012. Web.