International Distribution

When business historians look back at the period of the last 10 years of the twentieth century and the first decades of the new millennium, one of the most salient developments will be the emergence of the global economy. For several decades after the Second World War, companies rarely ventured outside their own national boundaries. While some of the world’s largest corporations, such as Coca-Cola, Ford Motor Company, and Procter & Gamble, had historically engaged in a significant international trade, governments were fearful of exporting technologies, core skills, product, and wealth that might drain national resources in the face of the Cold War. In many cases, enormous markets, such as Eastern Europe, Russia, and China, were closed behind a seemingly impenetrable “iron curtain.” Today, the Cold War has long been part of history. Some of the world’s most vibrant economies, such as China, Brazil, and India, have emerged from behind once closed societies to engage billions of people in global commerce in the search for individual as well as national growth and well-being. The advent of connective technologies have enabled companies at the furthest ends of the earth to network their ideas and their businesses in real-time, accelerate the growth of the international marketplace, and integrate the world’s economic activities. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this chapter (doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-7578-2_14) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.