Asian Integration— Towards Creating a Homogenous Asian Mind
One-day International Seminar
Concept Note
Let Asia undertake Business with One Homogenous Mind:
Whereas technology drives the means of production, so far it has failed to drive down a significant change in the mode of human involvement in the productive system. One of the very old company which is present in almost all countries in the world and has survived and threats, resilience of global market situation, withstood World War-I, World War-II, onslaughts and many more cross-currents in the global scenario for a long period of close to two centuries, remains still on the top of the world trying to be present in the mind of consumers across the globe with its own intrinsic value offered through the brand, product and services everywhere, still maintains its name, from the very inception as 'Procter & Gamble'. The journey for a nearly two hundred years could have been a journey succumbing to the pressures and threats from the gallops in technology, productive system, human behaviour, spread of knowledge in a new era and the rapid changing pattern in consumerism on one hand and the changing faces of global relations, cultures and political identities and occasional devastations by nature, on the other.
This is not the single example for a durability, sustainability, continued reengineering, adaptability, inclusiveness and growth through providing intrinsic value and connecting with relevant people throughout the world, there are so many other examples as well spread in most of the continents of the world.
GOODNESS PREVAILS: Technology has gifted us with instant communication, cosmic travel, non- human, robotic activities, reengineered organism on one hand and creating a human intellect in a non- human context, on the other. However, in all the situations technology has failed to transform the intrinsic attributes of human being in any way. The bad and corrupt remains bad and corrupt. Moreover, with the power of technology in hand the bad and corrupt finds better penetration in the global context to create an edge for them and perpetuate more aggressively to defeat the goodness of the world society. However, the technological change have favoured the most productive firm in each industry and helped reallocation of the resources towards growth across the potential markets. In the beginning of 20 th Century most firms in the world used to harp on the domestic boundaries more than the overseas places. It was in the beginning of 21 st century in general and the recent period in particular, the firms have chosen wider boundaries taking advantage of trade agreements, fiscal permissibility, cross border trade, contractual trade and free trade agreements, globally.
Emergence of SUPER STAR Firms: The emergence of electronic commerce and the Business to Business functioning on a wider scale on one hand and business to consumers on the other have actually provided a better solution to ease the barriers to trade, barriers to distribution, barriers to reach out, barriers to demographic identities and other restrictive elements in the business process. The world has gone in favour of two extremes, on one hand the world has paved the ways to create SUPERSTAR FIRMS and on the other the technology has eased out the access of knowledge to the business process as a whole and scale the business without significant component of ‘resource-mass’. The economic doctrines which were usually followed during the eighteenth, nineteenth and early and middle period of 20 th century have all taken a back seat with the capital market indicators coming up in a big way to determine the industrial prospect of nations and enterprises. The World Bank in its survey on the world development, published in World Development Report 2019 has identified the role of superstar firms in a big manner which reads as follows:
"Large firms dominate the global economy: 10 percent of the world's companies are estimated to generate 80 percent of all profits. Superstar firms shape a country's exports. One study of 32 developing countries found that, on average, the five largest exporters in a country account for a third of its exports, nearly half of export growth, and a third of growth due to export diversification."
The large firms have a beneficial effect on two aspects:
- Large firms can accelerate domestic economic growth through enhanced capacity of pulling resources, replacing the fatigued and old technology by the new, upgrading the skill unfolding potential of manpower and creating a new business process.
- The large firms are accelerators in economic chain, wherein instead of limiting its thrust on the direct productivity or the direct business system it creates a multiplier platform for a large number of new generation activities and entrepreneurship.
The World Bank study has supported the view and importance of large firms from a third point of view which highlights the emergence of latest technology. Digitalization, automation, robotization, creation of machine intelligence and machine-neurons have actually changed the focus of the world business from mere brick and mortar to a knowledge centric, continuously innovative and competitive, throughout emergent a business design. The job market thereby has focused on two broad categories with respect to the quality and nature of job as follows:
1. Brand seeking jobs.
2. Jobs on creative platforms.The Emergence of SUPER CONSUMPTION: Whereas the brand seeking jobs are supported by the existing brands who are present in any domain and who can operate from any geographical context, the other one is available to a person of any description to adapt and move for a job design nurtured and created through the active intervention of potential knowledge. Physical presence in the context of job is gradually getting replaced by the virtual presence of relevant people backed by certain types of physical identities brought through the combination of material, financial and human resources. As the markets move forward to higher number and degree of different faces of startups, the competition in the market rises higher and higher. The startups require supporting ambience and congenial market parameters. However, higher degree of competition thrown open by new range of startups redefined the market realities, in most of the cases, in favour of consumption. In the process, the market experiences a phenomenon of redistributive resources and creation of new range of value for the society and the Nation. As the World Bank has observed the process of facilitation offered by technology has to be garnered by a search for continuous receptivity in the society by way of creation of a new horizon and connecting it with different shades of consumers through new pathways. According to the World Bank:
"Technological progress leads to the direct creation of jobs in the technology sector. People are increasingly using smartphones, tablets, and other portable electronic devices to work, organize their finances, secure and heat their homes, and have fun. Workers create the online interfaces that drive this growth. With consumer interests changing fast, there are more opportunities for people to pursue careers in mobile app development and virtual reality design."
At one point of time population was argued as a negative factor towards economic growth and world was not ready in proper sense of the term to accommodate everybody in the process of growth which used to occur in certain sectors and some parts of the globe and also some sections of the population within the national boundaries.
However, during the middle of previous century it came to the understanding of the thinkers and practitioners that the human being can be considered as a resource and proper utilization and management of the said resource could lead to an expansion of the global economic standard and distributive development of the economics of the world. This however, has been further fine tuned through different ways and different aspects and levels of technology. This has been provided with converting the human power into a more resourceful element in the chain of business in the world. Culturally the pattern of business management has a broad divide between:
- Dominant Rational.
- Dominant Intuitive.
The dominant rational has always banked on the externalities like tools, technologies, in hard and soft form with applications through systems, structures, procedures and formal agenda, whereas the dominant intuitive have backed on the creative, perceptive, intuitive and sixth sense of doing things.
Business leadership transcends with a combination of these two with the emergence of two major global economies in the Asian Continent, namely China and India, the need to look at business leadership from a different perspective has become urgent. The Western model emphasizes more on the first category and has pushed the global business from a people-friendly to a profit-friendly process. The new reality of the world demands new breed of leadership based on traditional and millennia through tested wisdom of China and India. The wisdom centric attitude to life, as ancient India had lived on during its Vedic Period, has a strong relevance for the future shape of business in the world. This process will not only tend to develop leadership with a balance between the two varieties but also shall attempt to inculcate the ancient wisdom in the business process for the real survival and growth of business in a holistic manner in future.
It is in this context and with this call this international seminar has been convened to understand the real spirit of Asian Mind and combine the real spirit among the transactors and operators and finally offer it to the World for a healthy growth and proper sustainability of the global system in future.
Prof. (Dr.) R. P. Banerjee