When Doors are Opened - Traffic is both ways

When western countries (read US) forced Indian and other Asian economies to open their markets in late 1980s and early 1990s, they believed that they will get large markets for their products as well as cheap labour to work for their leisure and pleasure. They forced economies to open through multiple thrusts and forces that the so called poor protected economies had no means to push back. They relented. In 1990s opening of Indian economy by current Prime Minister, who was then finance minister of India was cricized and generated a feeling of fear of new products coming in India thus ending the so called monopoly of existing players in protected economy.

Well a decade later, the story has been turned on its head. It is the hunter who is feeling hunted now. The asian industries due to the strong innovation capability in a constrained environment that they are used to, have created a much bigger impact due to spreading globalization - for the simple reason that their people, are more used to ingenuity in adpating to change. And the change is what has exploded due to globalization spread. In the Connected Age, the early adpaters will thrive.

The article in NewYorker on Tata Invasion is the current example of what is the feeling in the country like US - the response to Tata's Nano which my friend Prakash analzed at his blog and the attempt of Tata to acquire the high end Jaguar and Landrover is - Tata who?

Well, it is not really important that Americans should know who is TATA, I think the scenario is emerging when the era of lazy, lesiure seeking, materialistic, automation dependent humans - in any society - either in US, Europe or Asia will end - it will be the age of continuous creative work - that will lead to the future - under constraints of living as per existing parameters of consuming natural resources.

Having said that, it will be difficult for anyone to miss TATA now because of TATA NANO - an output that has shifted the focus so much towards other side and which is contrarian to standard way of high end, big automobiles.

"Honey, I shrunk the AUTOMOBILE" - may be some EGOS as well!!

The NewYorker says, "But such an outcome wouldn’t change the fact that developing countries are now producing genuine global contenders. Globalization, it once seemed, was mainly going to give companies in the U.S., Europe, and Japan billions of new customers and plenty of cheap labor. But it has also meant that these companies have had to face many more real competitors than they once imagined. When we persuaded developing countries to open their doors to us, we also opened our doors to them. Now they’re walking through."


Well, when doors are opened, TRAFFIC is BOTH WAYS -