Business On A Global Basis

By Anne M. Ragusa

As I reflect on the changes I have witnessed in the way we do business in this millennium, I am humbled by the significant changes which have affected business owners, employees and consumers, and find that I cannot begin to predict how the transaction of commerce will change in the next millennium. For example, this century alone has seen many radical differences in the way business owners are mandated by law to treat their employees. Who, at the beginning of this millennium, could have ever predicted that employees would enjoy some of the rights which we have begun to take for granted (ie: minimum wage laws, right to unionize, American with Disabilities Act, discrimination and sexual harassment laws and the Family and Medical Leave Act, to name a few)? Likewise who would have guessed that business owners would be able to reach potential customers beyond their local towns and in fact conduct business internationally via their own personal computer? Who would have imagined that we would be living in a world where the economy is now considered on a global basis?

I am often surprised by the creativity that so many business people employ to adapt to an ever-changing business world. For example, in the late 1980s when employees of large corporations suddenly learned they were dispensable, many mid- and upper-level executives scrambled to reinvent themselves. These “downsized” employees became reluctant entrepreneurs and if they were lucky, found themselves competing successfully with their former employers.

Now, virtually all business owners have available at their fingertips incomprehensible amounts of information and resources alone will no longer give businesses a competitive edge. I have no prediction as to what the specific challenges are which lie ahead for the business world. However, as was true in the millennium now ending, those people who posses the characteristics of creativity and flexibility are the ones who I suspect will be in the best position to succeed in the next millennium.

Anne M. Ragusa is a Newtown attorney. She is currently serving a second term as President of the Chamber of Commerce of Newtown, Inc.