‘Under siege’: Businesses need to focus on geopolitics as current global order erodes

I shared comments with Tala Michel Issa for Arabian Business, on the urgency for corporates to make geopolitics their main focal point.

In the face of weaponising corporate interests, shifting power dynamics, and systematic economic warfare, I argued that “The times of the ‘international, borderless’ corporate are over”. “Companies are being reminded that, in spite of their international reach, they belong somewhere — a specific flag is flying over their headquarters — and this makes them a target or at least a pawn in this New Cold War.”

“Warfare has become economic, technological, legal, and is being waged through influence in norms and standards, ethical frameworks, and culture — all of which are weaponising corporate interests in the objective of achieving supremacy”. “Sitting on the fences of the US-China tech war is becoming increasingly difficult, if not downright impossible.”

“Corporations urgently need to learn how to view the world as driven by the ‘4 Bs’: a Bipolar world order, Binary narratives of ‘democracy vs autocracy’, the rise of exclusive trading Blocs, and the Bifurcation of technology standards and supply chains,”. “To survive this “bipolar world order”, businesses will need to duplicate operations across regions, localise R&D, reconfigure supply chains, and potentially even abandon certain markets that become untenable due to mutually incompatible political and regulatory environments.”

In a nutshell: “More than ‘digital transformation’, it is ‘geopolitical transformation’ that should be the first order of business for any corporation out there”.