While many of us in the industrialised world still conveniently, if incorrectly, cling tot he comforting notion that "our" top companies continue to lead the world, such complacency is scarcely justified at a time when:
- Samsung's global brand is now better recognised than Sony's, and its 2004 profits were higher than those of IBM, Microsoft, Intel or Nokia.
- Corona, a Mexican beer, sells more to Americans than Heineken.
- Mexico's cement maker Cemex has become the largest cement company in the US, the second largest in the UK, the third largest globally, and the leader in many other markets.
- Our computers are not just made, but largely designed in Taiwan and China.
- We get most of our advice on how to fix them from India.
- The Russian oil company Lukoil now owns a string of former Getty Oil gas stations in New York City, Washington DC and the entire East Coast, and Europe would freeze in the winter without steady gas supplies from Russia's Gazprom.
'The Emerging Markets Century' trains a veteran investor's eye to the top 25 multinationals (soon to be more than 100) capable of teaching executive and students of business worldwide valuable lessons about the brave world we will be inhabiting for some time to come. It takes readers into the plants, labs, boardroom suits and corner offices where these firms have learned in outmanoeuvering often far larger and more deeply entrenched incumbents to attain positions of leadership in their respective industries. The author provides vivid accounts of how far these firms have risen to the top, where they intend to go from there, how their rise to prominence and prestige is likely to affect our lives, what specific challenges they pose and what opportunities they may offer in the future.
He suggests that these firms should no longer be regarded simply as threats, but rather as the business partners, employers, investments, clients, suppliers, and markets of tomorrow.
The author argues that the industrialised world needs to mobilise a 'creative response' to this perceived threat more akin to the giant technological and evolutionary leap of the space program that arose in response to Sputnik than a reflective protectionism that only cripples our ability to compete on a level playing field. These companies are providing, to those of us willing to take a look and assess the matter objectively, a window on the future of globalisation. They and their leaders represent the true economic superstars of 'The Emerging Markets Century'.
