lcc liberal arts studies / 2010 volume iii - LCC International University

PRABHU GUPTARA / THE BUSINESS CONSEQUENCES OF GLOBALIZATION AND HOMOGENEITY
"a continuous process by which the blandness of homogeneity (the inevitable result
of the wrong kind of globalisation) is sought to be countered or enriched by the
search for novelty". I would like you to visualise globalisation, in terms of
homogenisation, as one of those Indian goddesses, only with three arms. The first
arm constantly beats everything together to homogenise everything, the second
arm seeks to constantly push the homogenised result into newer and newer parts of
the world, while the third arm constantly scours the world like an elephant's trunk to
find new and interesting fruit and detach it from the branches and roots to put the
fruit into the mix that is being homogenised. The result is that the fruit loses its
particular function in its own context but provides colour and texture to the
homogenised mix. You see this in culture where "exotic" types of music, dance and
images are divorced from their original context and function, and you see this in
business where the big companies buy up the best companies and the best
products. The reason I wanted to make these points about homogenisation is to
draw to your attention the importance of scale and scope, and therefore the
importance of brands.
The comments above lay a minimal foundation on the basis of which I hope
my comments regarding the future for small and medium-sized businesses will
make some sense.
It should be clear by now that, as far as I can see medium-sized business
face a highly uncertain future, given that they are squeezed by all the sorts of legal
issues faced by large companies and given that they have a relatively high cost
base compared to large companies.
However, small companies (particularly individuals trading as companies,
and companies composed of less than about eight people) cannot only survive,
they can flourish, because they can maintain the lowest possible costs and the
highest possible speed of response to changing market conditions.
Whether small companies do in fact flourish depends on the following
factors: The first is innovation. You can see immediately the problem with most of
the small companies we have. Certainly in ex-Soviet countries such as Lithuania,
we have to fully take in how totally opposed the mind-set is that produces creativity
and innovation versus the mind-set that was necessary to survive in the Soviet
system. You may say that this is obvious. But it is not at all obvious to me that the
consequences of accepting that as true have been followed through. For example,
one consequence at the top of your society, so to speak, would be that government
policies would nurture enterprise much more substantially. Another would be, at the
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