Thorniley updates us on the state of the global economy
What’s the state of the global economy? Daniel Thorniley (left) runs his own private business consultancy, but in his own words, he is not a “loser”. He has 235 Corporate clients even though he is on his own. He was able to acquire so many clients because he knew them through partnership and trust and he had known them for many years.
Thorniley updates us on the state of the global economy

How’s business?
What is going on in the world. The IT industry is doing well ane even extremely well in emerging markets. Pharmeutical and health is doing vell. Industrial and b2b products are doing rather well but b2c is more sluggish. There are several reasons why business ie emerging slowly from recession:
- Reason 1 is that the banking sector is not yet functioning properly. Big companies need banks to borrow money. Whereas emerging countries like China or India are trying to slow down growth, western countries would like to be able to borrow more money to whip up the economy,
- Consumption is strong in many emerging countries, but in many others like Britain, consumers are not doing that well. Interest on savings is very weak, unemployment is coming down slightly but is still strong. In the US, 9-10% of workers are jobless. But what if the average number of hours worked in the US is the lowest number since 1945 with only 32 hours per week (37.5 hours in Austria, 35.6 in France, UK 41 hours)? Just because people have been kept in jobs in the US doesn’t mean that they are happy and ready to spend more.
- The value of the housing market has fallen dramatically since 2006. The Greek issue shot up because of corruption and misspending.
BRICS should include Mexico!
BRICS should also include Mexico. Emerging markets are low volume, fast growth, whereas western countries will be high volume and low growth. We cannot apply our western patterns to the emerging markets. In the middle East, competitionMarket definition in B2B and B2C - The very notion of "market" is at the heart of any marketing approach. A market can be defined... is coming from new markets (BRIC and Eastern and Central Europe) competing on low quality and prices.
Thornliley’s advice for working in emerging markets
Daniel Thorniley delivered the following advice to companies which want to do business properly in emerging markets:
- Don’t overburden yourself with KPI’s
- talents in the emerging markets are great! give more independence to local staff on the ground
- avoid short-termism: Quarterly reporting isn’t working in the emerging markets