Game On for Global Business: A Perspective from GetGlobal
If you aren’t familiar with GetGlobal already, it may be time to change that. In just two years, they have established themselves as the pre-eminent global business conference designed to fuel international growth. Their maiden event in 2016 drew just shy of 1,000 attendees and Fortune 500 sponsors alike from across the country and world to downtown Los Angeles. Government and trade representatives to MNCs and small businesses engaged in thought leadership, solution-based panel discussions, and general global camaraderie. Global Chamber San Diego, which KSW Consulting represents, has been a strategic partner since the beginning to sing the global gospel, providing in real terms the ability to connect business solutions and people across borders.
The KSW team recently sat down with Get Global CEO Julian Leuthold to discuss the global business landscape from the rearview mirror and windshield alike, reviewing the last two years while looking ahead to the opportunities and challenges of global business in the Trump Era. Two things quickly became clear: a lack of confidence about global trade policy runs rampant, but it is underscored by a commitment among businesses to continue global expansion. Leuthold feels that businesses want more where trade is concerned - WTO seems outdated and ineffective, while TPP could have represented a huge step forward if it hadn’t ended up bypassing the U.S. As a result, countries are forced to think of trade in more regional terms. This is partly due to political administrations, but also the result of differences on issues like labor laws, human trafficking, animal rights, and other transnational concerns.
Regarding TPP specifically, Leuthold’s position is that it offers more than many Americans realize. “We look at the job situation as more a result of trade and not automation, but we’ve lost more jobs to technology than to trade,” Leuthold said in his explanation of why he favors the U.S. eventually joining the agreement that came from the original conversations. “TPP is terrifying for parts of this country because they focus on jobs leaving or products becoming cheaper, but they don’t realize that people will have more access and it will also make their products more affordable to more places. Nobody’s looking at improvements, they’re looking at deficits.”
In global trade, those who win are the ones who know what they’ve got and are confident about their ability to maximize its value. China, India, Japan, and now Mexico are circumventing the U.S. in certain areas because they hold stronger bargaining positions globally and put less value-based requirements on other countries. If the U.S. doesn’t play along the rest of the world will, on their own terms and in alignment with their own cultural norms. Leuthold cited China’s Belt and Road initiative as their way to “create linkages and improve relationships with other countries.” However, it’s important to note that while he sees China as having shifted the global trade equation, he does not see it as taking the global spotlight from the U.S.
India, too, has had its successes, particularly in the areas of information technology, auto manufacturing, pharma/biotech, and textiles, but the consistency, sustainability, and diversity of its economy and politics lag behind. Leuthold described India as “the ultimate global swing state”, one that, with a visionary economic and political leader, can turn their own outlook around any time they want. Leuthold, an Indophile himself, has spent a considerable amount of time in the country developing this particular regional expertise.
With all of this in mind, the next step in global business is to be visionary, amazing, and private. Leuthold cited artificial intelligence, blockchain integration, and data privacy issues - adding that “Facebook’s troubles are just beginning” - as factors to keep in mind when leading the way in all aspects of global industry. He emphasized that the importance of privacy will only increase, adding that, for Facebook, “All their activities involving personal data are coming to an end. Anything around voting, fake news will become problems.” Echoing what we’re now seeing in the media and Congress, he thinks the “Utopian” belief among tech giants that they can do as they please, absent-minded of their effect on reality because they are creating realities of their own, is coming to an end. “There is a demand-driven element that will keep Google, Facebook, etc., in a very comfortable position,” he added, “but the sense of invincibility is done forever.”
Leuthold summarized the mood of global business by saying that “Everybody’s paying close attention because they know everything is in play. If anyone gets the equation right, they have a tremendous advantage.” He notes the opportunities for smaller companies that “just need to make a few good moves and think strategically in their own domain” to get ahead. If that company has the recipe right, if they understand their own government and its policies, they end up a huge winner, but “if you get it wrong, thinking about it from an American-centric point of view, you can end up getting beaten up.” Thinking from a relatively limited view about Mexican, Chinese, or European competition is “over.” “The chess board is more serious,” he concluded, “there hasn’t been a ‘Sputnik Moment’ or a major new innovation, but that could come at any time.”
Leuthold, for his part, has become a major force in attracting a formidable crowd across sectors to break bread. In the coming year, he and GetGlobal will continue their mission through smaller strategic conversations held by way of a membership group, themed monthly dinners, and the third annual flagship conference, which will be held in downtown Los Angeles on November 7th and 8th.