In the last quarter century there were several events of global significance, finished revolutionizing the economic environment and business. The business world and revolutionized the international economy in the late twentieth century with the transition that occurred in a seller’s market to a buyers market. Among the causes that led to this transition are political changes globally conceived in that era.

Major political changes of the last quarter century:

In 1973, America was undergoing a series of political changes (the strike of the steel industry, ending the war in Vietnam), the main world power was in a vulnerable situation because it was both political and economic restructuring, increasingly losing political control and military power that had hitherto had.

Moreover, the collapse of the socialist model and the disappearance of the Soviet Union (U.R.S.S.: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) as a power. In parallel, facing a crisis of shortage of oil worldwide. This event was decisive in Western countries, taking the OPEC the decision to reduce oil prices, putting on alert to the producing countries, originated very negative effects on the development plans of oil-exporting countries, in general all underdeveloped leading them to economic stagnation.

Japan became a strong competitor in the manufacturing industry, successfully placed at the forefront of the market. The globalization and neoliberalism being developed and industrialized countries the first line, by dint of the crisis.

Comes the information age, consequently resulting in a new approach to knowledge management and intellectual capital becoming more powerful organizations that may possess, resulting in the breaking of the classical paradigms that require revolutionizing traditional management concepts to a new era of knowledge management.

Trends in the global:

Supply outstripped demand, so a seller’s market was a shift to a buyers market. From this change in the market, imposing the characteristics of products and services is the consumer. The labor factor lost importance as component production, due to process automation. Increased demand for human resources with better skills.

Foreign trade increased dramatically, with growth rate greater than they had in domestic demand in most countries as a reference describes the case of export development China in Latin America, outlines the impact of NAFTA with unilateral opening of Chile and MERCOSUR members.

Other mega-trends resulting:

Human society is becoming a service society, in addition to the changes mentioned above, there have been demographic changes in countries with greater purchasing power (North America, Europe) and have both a higher proportion of population.

These people have less need for consumer goods that young populations and require more personal care services (health, travel, special food, etc.). And other service needs. As there is a generation gap growing among the older population and new generations that is at once changing supply and demand.

Process automation and robotics:

There is also a boom in automation and robotic processes in primary and secondary sectors (agriculture and industry), which has reduced the number of people employed in these sectors. Services, by contrast, require more human contact can not be replaced through the systematization.

Outsourcing:

The outsourcing as administrative trend was a boom in the last two decades, which was crucial to the growth of service sector.

The open investment policies International:

It has also produced the universalization of the financial system as a result of pressure from the capital and international financial institutions to promote the opening of national markets. The revolution in information technology, communication and production systems has led to both the restructuring of organizational hierarchies, loss of jobs, unions, changes in contracts.

Key challenges to face in the changing market:

This explains why the market and way of doing business continues to change, introducing new rules, competitors, customers and unprecedented demands. Service providers face challenges and risks, struggling to stay profitable with the compelling competition and changes in prices. To address these challenges, seek innovative ways to increase the value of the service, and not enough to reduce service costs and the operation and maintenance should be reduced procurement times, errors and delivery times to increase the quality the service provided.

Differentiation, therefore, no longer comes at the price marked, but the responsiveness to the market. The key to success in this new era is to make decisions consistently better and faster than the competition.

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