Greetings, Global Enthusiasts! 🌎 Gone Global reporting for duty with a fresh batch of AI and outsourcing insights. 👮‍♀️ 💡 Get comfortable 🛋 and prepare to broaden your perspective on the future of work. ⏩ Here we go!

Globalization redefined

You think globalization, you probably think of the ever-growing interconnectivity of the world. 

The typical American might drive a European car, wear Spanish-designed Turkish-made clothes, watch a Korean-made TV, eat produce grown in Mexico, and listen to a British podcast from a Swedish app on a Chinese-made iPhone.

And you’d be right. Partially.

But globalization is more than just about how we interact and do business with each other.

The opportunities now available to the planet as a whole are going to give way to something even bigger.

It’s about a new economically-mobile middle class that is set to explode.

The middle-class meteor 

World Data Lab projects the middle class will grow by an astonishing 113m in 2024 – roughly the equivalent of the entire population of Egypt.

And 113m extra consumers will pay dividends for the global economy, with an extra  $2.3 trillion in consumer spending expected in 2024.

Everyone will be participating, both as a worker and as a consumer.

The world will become even more interlinked.

Heart of Asia

But the numbers don’t just stop there.

Bloomberg predicts that more than 1 billion Asians will be joining the middle class by 2030.

That is a truly staggering figure. In case you didn’t notice, those numbers dwarf the paltry 330 million Americans and 67 million Brits. As the world’s middle classes develop, the economic, cultural, and social geography will evolve. 

But Asia is a big place…so where exactly is this growth forecast?

According to Goldman Sachs, China, India, and Indonesia all feature heavily in their predictions, with Indonesia being of particular note, estimated as it is to rise to #4 economy in the world by 2050.

Southeast Asian surge

Not to be outdone, Southeast Asia is coming into its own. 

Countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand are part of this surge, and they’re not just sitting pretty. 

They’re some of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets globally.

Reap the rewards

With this meteoric economic explosion on the horizon, savvy companies and organizations are perfectly positioned to benefit from what’s coming.

The newly positioned middle class is going to be clamoring for goods and services, as well as generating a swathe of new jobs to sustain their new lifestyles.

The tech-savvy middle class aspires to services and products traditional businesses and governments will struggle to provide, like healthcare, education, entertainment, modern conveniences, and financial services.

A world of opportunity

The pessimists’ fear of globalization is that “they” will take “our” jobs. However, the reality is that adding one billion extra middle class will catalyze incredible opportunity for everyone – especially the developed world.

The rising middle class are consumers as much as they are workers.  And a massive spike in consumption will do wonderful things for the economy.

What does this mean?

A new generation of eager startups in the region will be using the latest technology to deliver what this growing middle class craves.

The question for your business

Is your business fully embracing Globalization 2.0’s opportunities?

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