What is a Global Perspective?

A global perspective is far more than an understanding of worldwide business and international career opportunities. Developing a global perspective involves taking a broader, more critical view of experience, knowledge and learning and includes seeking to understand the links between our own lives and those of people throughout the world. To adopt a global perspective, we need to enhance our understanding of the social, political and environmental forces that shape our existence. We also need to develop the skills, attitudes and values which will enable us to work together (across countries and cultures) to bring about change in the pursuit of a more just and sustainable world, where individuals are empowered and resources are more equitably shared. The principles of the Development Education Association (DEA) provided an important conceptual resource in eliciting a University Global Perspectives agenda. Thus, developing a global perspective' means that we aim to:

Enable people to understand the links between their own lives and those of people throughout the world Increase understanding of economic, social and political forces which shape life Develop skills, attitudes and values to enable people working together to bring about change for common good' and to take control of their own lives Work towards a more just and sustainable world where power and resources are more equitably shared.

Defining the terms

Global Perspectives is an 'umbrella' term embracing four main pillars that are:

Sustainable development Internationalisation Global issues Global processes.

Each pillar contributes to the development of global citizens. The broadly encompassing definition of Sustainable Development is: Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland, 1987).

This reflects the breadth of concerns. In A Curriculum for Global Citizenship (1997), Oxfam provides a list of the qualities of a Global Citizen, according to which the Global Citizen is someone who:

Is aware of the wider world and has a sense of their own role as a world citizen Respects and values diversity Has an understanding of how the world works economically, politically, socially, culturally, technologically and environmentally Challenges social injustice Participates in and contributes to the community at a range of levels from the local to the global Is willing to act to make the world a more equitable and sustainable place Takes responsibility for their actions

What is Global Strategic Planning?

Global strategic planning is a process adopted by multi national organizations in order to formulate an effective global strategy. GSP is a process of evaluating the internal and external environment by multinational organizations, through which they set their longterm and short-term goals and then they implement a specific plan of action in order to achieve those objectives. GSP is different from normal domestic strategic planning, because, in this case, organizations consider internal as well as external environments. In fact, the external environment is more crucial to consider when you are operating at a global level because at a domestic level competition is very directional and optimized, but at international level the competition is crucially important to be considered; otherwise survival is not at all possible at global level.

The Ignorance

Usually organizations dont bother to analyse external environments, but it is really detrimental for their healthy business operations. For example Harley Davidson, an American automaker faced huge problems due to their ignorance. Actually, Harley ignored the importance of external environment in strategy formulation. Their strategy for sales in US and other leading markets of world was highly rigid and conservative; they ignored their competitors including the Japanese automobile companies. As a result, the Japanese created and provided better automobiles in the potential markets of Harley Davidson. Japanese automobiles were better in looks as well as performance, but Harley ignored the efforts of Japanese competitors; as a result, its market share started falling and the company incurred huge losses. Learning from the mistake, Harley also adopted the protocol of global strategic planning. Harley Davidson restructured its international strategy in the light of external environment provide by various international competitors, and, as a result, after some time, Harley Davidson started regaining its customers. Strategy formulation The GSP of a company depends upon the internationalization approach followed by the company itself i.e. an ethnocentric organization will always formulate their GSP as an extension strategy, on the other hand a polycentric organization will formulate a more complex GSP. For strategic planning the first step is the evaluation of external and internal environment. For external environment evaluation, organizations scan the environment for the presence of various competitors. For an internal environment evaluation, organizations analyse their total physical resources and the skills of the employees working in the organization. MNCs also conduct VCA (value chain analysis) in order to integrate various primary and supportive activities of the organization. After environment evaluation, organizations decide their long-term and short-term goals. And then to achieve these goals, organizations implement their plan of action. Implementation of the plan involves three activities location, selection, ownership decision and finally functional decisions i.e. arrangement of finance etc. Control and evaluation Implementation is not the complete story; after implementing the plan of action organizations are also required to control it. Controlling is an effort under which organizations compare the planned performance with actual behavior of the plan, and check for any deviations. If there are any deviations, the organizations take corrective actions to control the plan. In this way Global Strategic Planning helps the multinational organizations to achieve their goals in the global business environment.