Changing Businesses

I had a very fruitful and insightfully rich discussion regaring doing business at international level with Mr. Inayat Khan, CEO and chief developer at a local software firm, specializing in web-development out-sourcing. Below is the gist of our discussion:

Change is difficult, painful and often unwelcome. Equally often, people look for some ogre to blame for their fear of change. That’s nothing new, but it’s how globalisation is pilloried.  
But, in today’s global market, there is no more important given than the increasing velocity of change. 

Whether you are a government official or a business person, with the global market on your mind,…if you are thinking of standing “pat” and ignoring the waves of innovation thundering through the economy, think again. You must embrace and exploit change.

That means a regulatory mosaic that permits, to the maximum, the market to work its magic. Metaphorically, a good soccer or football game would be ruined if the referees went from vigilant towards abuse to building fences between the players or making some of them carry bowling balls. Regulation can be attentive without being overly complex or burdensome.
Markets are forming, shifting and fading rapidly.    

Competition, the essence of the marketplace and the consumers best friend, is driving human ingenuity. You have heard plenty about the rapid changing of business models brought about by the application of technological advance to the business enterprise.

e-Commerce blows the doors off market constraints, that is, those constraints that inhibit an innovative entrepreneur in a developing country from reaching the market outside his or her borders. It also empowers the consumer to reach out to global competitors. 

A business person or a government official who ignores either of these openings, or worse, tries to stifle them is in trouble.