In the June issue of McKinsey Quarterly , Martin Dewhurst, Jonathan Harris, and Suzanne Heywood discuss the shift in economic focus to new developing markets and how global companies must adjust to the challenge. Dewhurst,  Harris, and Heywood, In the article The Global Company’s Challenge analyze data collected from 300 executives at 17 of the world’s leading global organizations, with the challenge in mind to understand, “more clearly the challenges facing global organizations.”

What Dewhurst, Harris, and Heywood found was a set of four common trends that affect many organizations which include: managing strategy, people, costs, and risk on a global scale. They also found that understanding these trends is only the foundation. To ultimately be successful global companies must find ways to benefit from these trends and avoid problems that come from them.

Excerpt taken directly from The Global Company’s Challenge by Martin Dewhurst, Jonathan Harris, and Suzanne Heywood

Managing global organizations has been a business challenge for centuries. But the nature of the task is changing with the accelerating shift of economic activity from Europe and North America to markets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. McKinsey Global Institute research suggests that 400 midsize emerging-market cities, many unfamiliar in the West, will generate nearly 40 percent of global growth over the next 15 years. The International Monetary Fund confirms that the ten fastest-growing economies during the years ahead will all be in emerging markets. Against this backdrop, continuing advances in information and communications technology have made possible new forms of international coordination within global companies and potential new ways for them to flourish in these fast-growing markets.

To explore this issue further please read The Global Company’s Challenge