Global-ity: Competing With Everyone from Everywhere for Everything

You know those news reports that show how American students lag way behind kids from other far-off countries when it comes to scoring on standard math, science, and technology tests?

Well, those kids from those far off lands have now grown up and are eager to claim the world as their turf.

Globalization is about Americans outsourcing product development and services to other countries. Globality is the next step, where rapidly developing economies from around the world are now competing with us head to head. The authors present a strong case that the economic climate in which we have lived is going to change in unprecedented ways.

Over the past five years, Hal Sirkin, Jim Hemerling and Arindam Bhattacharya of the prestigious Boston Consulting Group have completed an exhaustive study of more than 3,000 companies operating in the new emerging market economies of China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Eastern Europe. Sirkin, Hemerling and Bhattacharya believe that these companies that seem obscure today will be the GMs, Monsantos, Apples, Proctor and Gambles and Toyotas of the future.

Sooner than we think, we will either end up working for these foreign-based companies or, even worse, have to compete with them. Globality will describe how these new companies have come to power, and how, in the West, we will have to step up our game if we are to compete with these new, lean, powerful businesses.

HAL SIRKIN, JIM HEMERLING and ARINDAM BHATTACHARYA are partners of the Boston Consulting Group. Sirkin, based in Chicago, is a Senior Vice President and worldwide leader of BCG Global Operations practice. Hemerling, who has been based in Shanghai since 2000, is the managing director of BCG Greater China. Bhattacharya is a BCG Vice President, and leads the firm's office in New Delhi.

JOHN BUTMAN was the collaborating writer for PAYBACK and TRADING UP: THE NEW AMERICAN LUXURY (Portfolio 2003) and author of many other titles.