Conceptual Design of a Global Audit to Improve the International Competitiveness of Small and Medium Enterprises

Diplomarbeit aus dem Jahr 2004 im Fachbereich BWL - Unternehmensführung, Management, Organisation, Note: 1,0, Helmut-Schmidt-Universität - Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg (Institut für Personalwesen und Internationales Management), Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: 'We live in a time that is characterized by an increasing globalization and internationalization. We cannot and should not elude of it.' 'All business today is global. Those individual businesses, firms, industries, and whole societies that clearly understand the new rules of doing business in a world economy will prosper; those that do not will perish.' The process of globalization has extremely proceeded in the last decades. There is no other term that controls the actual discussion in policy and economy in this enormous extend, like globalization does. A few years ago the term of globalization was nearly unknown. Meanwhile it is omnipresent. In 1980 the term 'globalization' hit the headlines in only fifty publications of all popular business magazines; in 1990 already six hundred seventy entries were found. Nowadays it is to state, that globalization is not an invention of the 20thcentury. In the strict sense even the Babylonians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greek, and Romans practiced globalization to explore faster and cheaper trade routes. Today, in the 21st century, the process of globalization is still continuous. For the future it is probable that the highest growth rates will be reached outside of our local markets any longer. At no time before globalization has reached the present extent. Current technological, economical, and political developments in form of new transport-, information-, and communication-technologies, deregulated capital and goods markets, as well as an increasing loss of importance of national borders in politics and society led to the situation that a global exchange takes place. As a result competition not only occurs between German suppliers on the German markets, but also on the European and World markets.