[MUSIC] Hi, I'm Andrew Allen and I teach the Capstone course for the Global Challenges and Business Specialization. Now I'm excited about this course not just because we're talking about doing business across borders, but because I have lived and worked in over 20 countries around the world. I lived in Europe for five years, I've worked with businesses in South Africa, and China, and Brazil, and in other parts of the world. And I love learning about businesses and cultures and different politics and economies around the world and how to do business across borders. I'm also excited about this course because it's all about learning by doing. You're going to take what you've learned from your classes on global strategy and cultural psychology, ethics and sustainable innovation, and you'll apply those lessons learned, those theories, to solve a real problem for a real company. The company you're going to be working with is Doublestar. Doublestar is multi-national tire company based in a beautiful city called Qingdao, in China. In a recent years, Doublestar has experienced tremendous success and it's going to be a fun company to work with. Your project in this Capstone course is to help them create a strategy to expand their company overseas. And in this course, you'll also follow me as I travel to Qingdao to meet with their executives and managers. We'll learn about their operations and their strategy and their long term goals. I'll also give you a taste of what it's like to live and do business in China. And Doublestar will be involved in your projects, and will give you feedback on your work. So my hope is that this becomes a global business experience that you'll never forget. Now, before we jump into the course, let me touch on two more things. First, we have to ask the question, why is it so important to be effective working in a global business environment, in other words, why study Global Business. In your global strategy course, you learned four reasons, so let's just review those. First of all, the Internet has made it possible to do business and share information across borders and time zones instantly. It just makes it really easy now to do business internationally. Now second, more and more Non-Western countries are participating in the global economy. You can see in this chart on the right hand side, in this other category meaning Non-Western countries, you see incredible growth and participation in the global economy from Non-Western countries. Third governments and investors have increased cross-border trade and investments. And there are many more agreements and policies that make it easier for companies to do business across borders. And fourth companies can source raw materials and conduct production in any number of countries now. There’s this idea of global supply chain that connects countries together like never before. So, if you can learn to be effective in this environment, you will be more and more valuable to your employer, to clients that you work with, and just to your personal network. Second, why work with a company based in China? Let me give you two reasons, first China is a major player in both global politics and the global economy, and it appears is that its influences is only continuing to grow. The second because of its population size and growing middle class, it is more and more likely that you will do business in or do business with China sometime in your career. Let me just show you some statistics. China's population makes up nearly one fifth of the world population, that's a pretty big slice of the pie. On this chart, you can see the incredible growth that China has had over a 20 year period from 1995 to 2015. Building on that, here you see a projection going all the way to 2030 where China's economic dominance far outstrips the US. Finally, you see here on this map where the Fortune Global 2000 companies are based. The US is home to the highest number of these companies, but China comes in second. In fact, the top three on the global 2000 list are all Chinese companies. So the bottom line, the more experience you have doing business with China the better off you'll be in your career. I'm excited for you to experience this course. This course will be challenging, it will also be fun and engaging. So I challenge you to put a lot of effort into this, to truly engage in the material, to engage with our partner Doublestar. And if you do I can promise you it will be worth the effort, so let's get started.
