The changing technology environment has and still become one of the biggest challenges in international business management.  Technological changes can wreak havoc on industries. In making decisions regarding technological changes, companies err in two ways. They either commit themselves to a new technology too fast and burn their fingers or wait and watch while another company comes up with a new technology that puts them out of business. The issue of when and how to react to the emergence of a new technology is a matter of judgment. However, this judgment need not be based purely on intuition. By doing a systematic structured analysis of developments in the technological environment and putting in place the necessary organizational mechanisms, technology risk in  business  can be considerably reduced. How can managers identify the emergence of a disruptive technology? Clayton Christensen’s research reveals that disruptive technologies are often developed privately by engineers working Continue reading
International Business Laws
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) – Concept, Benefits and Weakness
For a sustainable growth and economic development of a country, innovation and creativity is a very important dimension. Industries and the global markets of the 21st century rest on the intellectual property protection as it is one of the central public policy. By the mid-1990s, a minimum global standard for IPR had been preserved in the WTO Charter through the incorporation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The transfer in international economic policy and the lowering of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers to the embrace of strong IPR is genuinely an issue of controversy. Intellectual property rights (IPR) are legal claims settled by governments within their relevant sovereignties that grant trademark, patents and owners of copyright the exclusive right to exploit their intellectual property for a certain period. The fundamental right for IPR protection is to provide an incentive for innovation by granting IP owners Continue reading
Trade Protectionism in International Business
Trade Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between nations,  through methods such as high tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and  anti-dumping laws in an attempt to protect domestic industries in a particular  nation from foreign take-over or competition. This contrasts with free trade,  where no artificial barriers to entry are instituted. Trade Protectionism has frequently been associated with economic theories such as  mercantilism, the belief that it is beneficial to maintain a positive trade balance,  and import substitution. There are two main variants of trade protectionism,  depending on whether the tariff is intended to be collected (traditional  protectionism) or not (modern protectionism). Modern protectionism:  In the modern trade arena many other initiatives besides tariffs have been called  protectionist. For example some economists see  developed countries’ efforts in imposing their own labor or environmental  standards as protectionism. Also, the imposition of restrictive certification  procedures on imports are seen Continue reading
Quality Standards For Exports
In almost all the products, for which the pre-shipment inspection scheme has been introduced, great care has been taken to accept the buyer’s requirements, wherever known, as the basis of inspection. In many cases, where the buyer’s requirements are known through-an approved sample of, for example, footwear or handicrafts, inspection is carried out on the basis of the approved sample. However, for items involving safety, such as cables and conductors, only the national standards, either Indian or those of the importing country, have been adopted. In the case of commodities involving health hazard, such as fish and fishery products, statutory laws as applicable in the importing country for these products, are adhered to. This particular approach has been found to be extremely practical and has helped the exporters to maintain the quality of their products. For adopting or establishing technical specifications, detailed discussions are held with the trade and industry Continue reading
Quality Control and Pre-shipment Inspection for Exports
In today’s sophisticated world market, a product can move with any measure of success only if it is competitive enough in price and quality. Our export can be sustained and improved only be raising the quality of our product as it would be very difficult to reduce the price in our present day high-cost economy, with a view to achieve this objective of raising the quality of our export products, the Government of India enacted the legislation entitled “The Export (Quality Control and Inspection) Act” in the year 1963, and the Export Inspection Council was also set up with effect from 1st January, 1964. The main function of the Export Inspection Council is to advise the government with regard to measures to be taken for quality control and pre-shipment inspection of exportable commodities. No Consignment of any notified commodity can be exported unless it is accompanied by a certificate issued Continue reading
What is CounterTrade?
Countertrade constitutes an estimated 5 to 30 percent of total world trade. Countertrade greatly proliferated in the 1980s. Perhaps, the single most important contributing factor is  Least Developed Countries (LDC’s) decreasing ability to finance their import needs through bank loans. Countertrade, one of the oldest forms of trade, is a government mandate to pay for goods and services with something other than cash. It is a practice, which requires a seller as a condition of sale, to commit contractually to reciprocate and undertake certain business initiatives that compensate and benefit the buyer. In short, a goods-for-goods deal is countertrade. Unlike monetary trade, suppliers are required to take customers products for their use or for resale. In most cases, there are multiple deals that are separate yet related, and a contract links these separable transactions. Countertrade may involve several products, and such products may move at different points in time while Continue reading