For more than a century, Coca-Cola’s immense branding power has centered on its signature soft drink. But with many of today’s consumers switching from sugary sodas to healthier options, the company can no longer rely on its namesake beverage like it once did. So in order to keep up with changing tastes, last year Coca-Cola launched more than 500 new drink brands across the globe. “There are products out there in the world that perhaps we wouldn’t have tried a Continue reading
After its founding in 1892, General Electric spent decades growing into one of the country’s most successful companies. It continued to expand in the years following World War II, only this time GE began thinking globally rather than domestically. The company built its first international supply chains by establishing manufacturing centers in industrialized nations like France and Japan. By the 1990s GE moved on to developing economies like India and China where the company could produce items like jet engines Continue reading
In the years since the economic crisis of 2008, wealth inequality has been an increasingly alarming problem both for scholars and regular people. Last year, the development charity Oxfam estimated that 62 billionaires owned just as much wealth as the poorest 50 percent of the globe. This month, however, the agency had worse news: a group of just eight men are worth a combined $426 billion, equivalent to the wealth held by 3.6 billion people.
Along with foreign billionaires like Continue reading
In 2012, MIT student Amrita Saigal chose to tackle a largely unaddressed health issue for a project in her product design class. She hoped to create a low-cost method to distribute clean, reliable sanitary pads for women across India. The subject of feminine hygiene remains largely taboo on the subcontinent with studies showing that 88 percent of menstruating women are forced to use crude homemade remedies like rags or newspapers. Saigal’s idea centered on a sanitary pad machine that would Continue reading
For years advertising has been the central source of revenue for the online world. It’s also been a nuisance to many users for just as long. From early pop-up ads to the modern era of loud auto-playing videos, online ads have the irritating ability to distract web surfers from the content they were actually looking for. As a result, millions of users across the globe have installed ad blockers to remove these annoying images from their online experience.
In fact, Continue reading
Throughout the U.S., food delivery apps like GrubHub and Postmates have totally transformed takeout. These services offer eaters a variety of cuisines and restaurants to choose from, a far cry from the days when many American homes could only order pizza for delivery. And unlike other tech startups, food delivery companies have developed solid profit models based on the service fees they charge. This dependable system translates into markets throughout the world. The Berlin-based delivery service Foodpanda, for instance, operates Continue reading
In 2014 more than three hundred million Indians were regular users of the Internet, representing nearly a quarter of the country. With that number expected to double by 2020, India is the fastest growing online market outside of China. However, there’s a crucial difference in the way these two Asian nations use the Web. While China’s government prohibits foreign digital services like Facebook from setting up shop, India welcomes them.
At least that’s the way it works in theory. After Continue reading
With a consumer pool of more than one billion people, India has become the next big expansion destination for companies around the world. While some businesses are still working the bugs out of their strategies for the subcontinent, other operations have hit the ground running and quickly grabbed up market share. Domino’s, for instance, now sells more pizza in India than anywhere else besides the U.S. thanks to its savvy combination of local and Western tastes. On the other hand, Continue reading
For emerging economies, investment from foreign powers has long been a contentious topic. In fact, as recently as last year protestors lined the streets of India’s major cities against a series of reforms designed to open the country’s retail sector to foreign direct investment (FDI). The laws would allow companies like Wal-Mart and Tesco to buy up to 51% stakes in local businesses. The proposed reforms inflamed the fears of many Indians who felt that the economy would become Continue reading
First days on the job tend to be stressful. Not only must fresh hires learn the names of a litany of new colleagues, they may also be required to endure often boring orientation sessions. In corporate environments especially, these standardized introductory rituals teach new hires to tone down their own personalities in order to conform to the company’s way of doing things. While this is likely an efficient way to acclimate employees to the job, new studies show that Continue reading