Today in Global Small Business: Turning Uncertainty Into Opportunity in 2023

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Is your organization ready to turn uncertainty into opportunity? Here's how you prepare.
• Are we in a prolonged sideways trend?
• Quote of the week:  "Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, 'It will be happier.'" – Alfred Lord Tennyson
• The big opportunity behind global small businesses.
• The World Bank tells it like it is – 2022 in review.
• The White House looks back on 2022.

Female Entrepreneurship Is on the Rise Globally

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The World Bank's research shows that female entrepreneurs tend to encounter a unique set of challenges in starting and running their businesses globally.

1. Juggling competing priorities.
2. Skills gaps.
3. Legal constraints.
4. Financial and digital inclusion.

What are the things that male and female mature businesses, business leaders, academics and society at large can do to help?

Find out here how to uplift female entrepreneurs.

Today in Global Small Business: Staying Apart to Stay Healthy

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Visit The World Bank website to see what they are doing to treat – sustain economies and protect jobs – during the COVID-19 outbreak.
• Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are working together to fund research for COVID-19 treatments as the pandemic continues to spread.
• Quote of the week relating to the COVID-19 outbreak: “It’s very tough to say to people, ‘Hey keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, ignore that pile of bodies over in the corner, we want you to keep spending because there’s some politician that thinks GDP growth is what counts,’” Gates said. “It’s hard to tell people during an epidemic … that they should go about things knowing their activity is spreading this disease." – Bill Gates
• New OECD outlook on the global economy.
• A national defining moment – what historians will say about COVID-19.
• Staying apart to stay healthy during the COVID-19 crisis.

Today in Global Small Business: Who Will Lead The World Bank Next?

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• India's leading export:  CEOs ... how they are leading the global tech revolution.
• World Bank's Kim to take new job.  Who will lead the World Bank next?
• Quote of the week:  "All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” — Walt Disney
• Going global:  what clients need to know (podcast).
• Mobile transactions, particularly with smartphones, continue to grow globally.
• Join a weggchat® 2/6 hosted by @weggtoday with Jacqueline Smith, CEO, Kiesque where she will discuss how to startup and take a personal care product global.  It's free and all you need is a Twitter account.  Go here to find out why you should join the chat and how to do it.

Global Growth Will be Strong in 2018

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According to The World Bank, global growth is expected to edge up to 3.1 percent in 2018.  Global trade has gained momentum, especially in global manufacturing and investment, which is in recovery mode.  Global trade accelerated substantially, supporting export growth in most emerging market and developing economy regions.

Read more about why 2018 global growth will be strong, and why there is still cause for concern, in 10 charts.

Download (automatic) the January 2018 Global Economic Prospects report.

Small Businesses Drive Exports

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According to The Telegraph, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are united in being positive about the British economy, confirming what folks in the UK, especially at The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), have known for months.

The latest growth forecasts from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted brighter days for the global economy, with both reports reserving special mention for the UK’s performance.

Read the entire article:  Ensuring our small businesses realize their global ambitions is the best way to improve exports

Goes to show you that small businesses everywhere have an overwhelming desire to operate on a global level.

New Powers of the Developing World. It's Called the South.

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A new report, "The 2013 Human Development Report," examines the profound shift in global dynamics driven by the fast-rising new powers of the developing world and its long-term implications for human development.

But the "Rise of the South" analyzed in the Report is a much larger phenomenon: Turkey, Mexico, Thailand, South Africa, Indonesia and many other developing nations are also becoming leading actors on the world stage.

Find out how the report identifies more than 40 countries in the developing world that have done better than had been expected in human development terms in recent decades.

Read:  The 2013 Human Development Report - "The Rise of the South:  Human Progress in a Diverse World"

Easy access - Download parts of the 2013 report (Media)

Road Ahead Remains Bumpy for the World

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Show me the money!  Where is the beef?  Or how about:

"We can’t wait for a return to growth in high-income countries,” says World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim.

Meanwhile, see why the road ahead remains bumpy for the world here.

More according to The World Bank:

The World Bank estimates global GDP grew 2.3 percent in 2012, compared with last June’s expectation of 2.5 percent. Growth is expected to remain broadly unchanged at 2.4 percent growth in 2013, before gradually strengthening to 3.1 percent in 2014 and 3.3[1] percent in 2015.

[1] Using 2005 purchasing power parity weights, global growth would be 3.0, 3.4 and 4.2 percent for 2012, 2013 and 2015, respectively.

Full report:  Prospects for the Global Economy

Emerging Nations Proceed With Caution

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Andrew Burns, head of macroeconomics at the World Bank, told journalists in London: “Developing countries should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”

Predicting significantly slower global growth in 2012 than it expected last summer even if the eurozone muddles through its crisis, World Bank economists said that if financial markets deny funds to eurozone economies, global growth would be about 4 percentage points lower than even these figures with poorer economies far from immune.

Read the entire article: World Bank Warns Emerging Nations

6,775,235,700

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That's the world population 2009 according to Google who uses World Bank, World Development Indicators as its source.

According to About.com Geography:  World population as of May 11, 2011 is 6,852,472,823.

What percent of the world population are you selling?  Do you think we will hit 7 billion by 2012 or sooner?

Related post(s) on worldly population issues.

Data Apps and Mash-Ups for the World

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The World Bank is opening the doors to thousands of its global development indicators and inviting the public to use the data in mash-ups, smart phone applications, and other tech tools that can help support clean energy and fight poverty.

"This will allow policy makers, researchers, and civil society to track the impact of policies, develop new solutions, and measure improvements more accurately," says Shaida Badiee, director of the bank’s development research data group.

To encourage software developers, the bank is holding an “Apps for Development” contest with $45,000 in prizes and financial support. Entries are due by Jan. 10 and must include data from at least one of the bank’s data-sets and relate to one of the bank’s eight key development goals that range from environmental sustainability to reducing childhood mortality.

Sounds like this will move us a step closer toward solving some of the world's most pressing problems.

Learn more:  The Global Muckraker - International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

China Entrepreneur's Order Book Is Emptying

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See how one China entrepreneur rode China's expansion but is now struggling to adapt as exports slow.

Check out the World Bank's outlook on China here.

I wonder if learning how to adapt quickly is more important than innovation this year? Or, do you think we need both in order to thrive in this new economy?

Doing Business With the World

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The Doing Business database provided by The World Bank Group is fabulous. It provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement -- spanning across no less than 175 economies.

And the new "Doing Business 2007: How to Reform" has just been released. Check it all out ... here.