Digitising Communities in South Africa

In the middle of last year, Walmart opened a store in China. It’s likely to be successful because the retail giant is no newcomer to the middle kingdom. In fact, while there was a major drive in the 1980s to ‘buy local’, Walmart had already established distribution warehouses in China – one of the first major global businesses to do that. Before that, it was already in Korea and Hong Kong.

Globalisation works. Despite all the problems that it also causes, it’s hard to argue that we’d all be better off if business networks couldn’t operate across borders. Not only selling items to other countries but the ability to scour the globe for the best products and quality ingredients at the right price. Just ask Singapore or Japan, two massive economies in countries with no natural resources. Or Australia: despite having lots of natural resources, over two-thirds of its economy is based on services.

The connected world

It used to be the case that if you wanted to play on a global scale, you had to be a big and powerful company. But not anymore. Thanks to connectivity and technology, almost any business can find a market beyond its borders. All it takes these days is a high-speed internet connection and you can get started plying your trade worldwide. Netflix and Uber are common examples of this force at work. You can also pay cheaply for great services, such as Office365, and so drastically lower expense...