1 Globalization and the Impact
of Globalization
1.1 Globalization
Globalization is the process of international integration
arising from the interchange of world views,
products, ideas and other aspects of culture.[i]
Advances in transportation
and telecommunications
infrastructure, including the rise of the telegraph
and its posterity the Internet, are
major factors in globalization, generating further interdependence of
economic and cultural activities.[ii]
The term globalization has been increasingly used since
the mid-1980s and especially since the mid-1990s.[iii]
The concept of globalization 'emerged from the intersection of four
interrelated sets of "communities of practice": academics,
journalists, publishers/editors, and librarians.' [iv]
Economists were central in this early stage. In 2000, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) identified four basic aspects of globalization: trade and transactions, capital and investment movements, migration and movement of people, and the
dissemination of knowledge.[v]
Further, environmental challenges such as climate change,
cross-boundary water and air pollution,
and over-fishing of the
ocean are linked with globalization.[vi]
Globalizing processes affect and are affected by business
and work organization, economics, socio-cultural resources, and the natural environment.
1.2 Impact of Globalization
From
the above summary of globalization we can see that globalization has already impacted
many different aspects in our lives, e.g. in terms of politics, economics,
culture, environments and technologies, etc.
What I
would like to focus in this article are mainly on the following aspects:
1.2.1 In Terms of Economics
Economic globalization primarily comprises the
globalization of production and finance, markets and technology, organizational
regimes and institutions, corporations and labour.[vii]
On the one hand globalization has radically increased
incomes and economic growth in developing countries and lowered consumer prices
in developed countries, on the other hand it also changes the power balance
between developing and developed countries and has an impact on the culture of
each affected country. And the shifting location of goods production has caused
many jobs to cross borders, requiring some workers in developed countries to
change careers. This has
caused more connections between different regions of this world.
1.2.2 In Terms of technologies
Globalization also accelerates the
change of technology. Every day it seems that a new technological innovation is
being created. The pace of change occurs so rapidly many people are always
playing catch up, trying to purchase or update their new devices.
Technology is now the forefront of the modern world creating new jobs,
innovations, and networking sites to allow individuals to connect globally. Under
the influence of globalization, the emerging technology - Big Data
Technology, has been applied to various
industries around
the world rapidly.
1.2.3 In Terms of migration and movement of people
As the
globalization began to develop faster and faster, the migration and movement of
people between different countries became more and more often. People employed
by multinational companies and connected
through a global system of networking
and production, immigrant
workers, transient migrant
workers, telecommuting workers, and those in export-oriented employment or contingent work and other precarious
employment need to travel more, due to the impact of globalization. And
the others moves to other countries, due to better living conditions, better
education, better medical care, more security or family links.
These increasing
movements have brought huge opportunities for the tourism industry, especially airlines
and car rental companies, etc.
2 Globalization and Car Rental
Industry
One of the industries which benefitted most from the
growing globalization is car rental industry. The increasing transnational
business activities and the increasing migration and movement of people have
played a significant role in the growth of global car rental industry. According
to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research "Car
Rental Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and
Forecast, 2013 - 2019," global car rental market was valued at USD 36.89
billion in 2013, growing at a CAGR of 13.6% from 2014 to 2019 to account for
USD 79.46 billion in 2019.[viii] Today, the market is expanded and diversified not only in
developed countries but also in the emerging economies, such like India, Brazil
and China etc.
3 Big Data and Car Rental
Industry
In the present scenario, car rental industry has become
very technologically oriented. And Big Data Technology becomes a big support
for the modern Car Rental Industry gradually.
3.1 Company Hertz as a good
example
With over 8300 business locations in 146 countries globally,
company Hertz is one of the world’s largest car rental companies. Recently it
started to work together with IBM (e.g. company Mindshare, an IBM Partner) to
use IBM data analytics tooling (driving by the big data technology) and has obtained
in a short time frame a competitive advantage over its global competitors.
Before the cooperation with IBM, Hertz has traditionally
kept it's finger on the pulse of it's customers with customer satisfaction surveys.
And what’s the problem? How should Hertz analyze all these information and
understand what customers were trying to tell them through these surveys?
“Hertz gathers an amazing amount of customer insight
daily, including thousands of comments from web surveys, emails and text
messages. We wanted to leverage this insight at both the strategic level and
the local level to drive operational improvements,” said Joe Eckroth, Chief
Information Officer, the Hertz Corporation. Mindshare, a partner of IBM,
realized there was an opportunity for Hertz: not only could the company address
its need to understand its customers better, but also how it could take efforts
to enhance its relationship with its customers.
Here's how Mindshare helped Hertz to address it's
customer satisfaction challenges and enhance it's customer engagement
activities by using IBM’s big data analysis:
Ø Enhanced
the manner in which Hertz gathered customer sentiment surveys by centralizing
the process.
Ø Allowed
Hertz's analysis to occur in half the previous time, giving the company the
ability to respond quickly to customer’s feedback
Ø Provided
Hertz insights which allowed it to take immediate action on problem areas
Here is an example - while evaluating the solution, Hertz
was able to identify a potential area for improvement in Philadelphia: surveys
indicated that delays were occurring for returns during specific times of the
day. By investigating this situation, Hertz was able to quickly adjust their
staffing levels at the Philadelphia office during those peak times, ensuring a
manager was present to resolve any issues. This enhanced Hertz's performance, and
increased customer satisfaction, all by parsing the volumes of data being
generated from multiple sources. This tangible example of Big Data providing
real returns, convinced Hertz to move forward with the IBM/Mindshare Big Data
solution.[ix]
Big data can also be helpful for Car Rental Industry in
following aspects:
3.2.1
Customer Relationship
After the emergence
of big data technology, by combining internal and external databases like rental
history, purchasing history or spending habits with publicly available
information, car rental companies can learn a whole lot about their customers’
preferences on a macro level easily.
They can then
recommend suitable vehicles for their customers according to their previous car
choices as well as according to the recorded rental places and time periods.
Thus the customer relationship will be improved and more business profit can be
achieved.
3.2.2
Vehicle Management
4
Summary
We believe that with the great support of emerging technologies, especially the big data technology, the future car rental industry will become more and more efficient and convenient for the customers.
[i]
Albrow,
Martin and Elizabeth King (eds.) (1990). Globalization, Knowledge and
Society London: Sage. ISBN 978-0803983243 p. 8.
"...all those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated
into a single world society."
[ii]
Stever, H.
Guyford (1972). "Science, Systems, and Society". Journal of
Cybernetics 2 (3): 1–3. doi:10.1080/01969727208542909.
[iii]
Google Books Ngram Viewer: Globalization https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=globalization&year_start=1900&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cglobalization%3B%2Cc0
[iv]
James,
Paul; Steger, Manfred B. (2014). "A Genealogy of globalization: The career of
a concept". Globalizations 11 (4): 424.
[v]
International
Monetary Fund. (2000). "Globalization: Threats or Opportunity." 12 April 2000: IMF Publications.
[vi]
Bridges, G.
(2002). "Grounding Globalization: The Prospects and Perils of Linking
Economic Processes of Globalization to Environmental Outcomes". Economic
Geography 78 (3): 361–386. doi:10.2307/4140814.
[vii]
James,
Paul; Gills, Barry (2007). Globalization and Economy, Vol. 1: Global
Markets and Capitalism. London: Sage Publications.
[viii]
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140707102103-221228539-global-car-rental-market-size-and-share-2013-2019
[ix]
“How big data is giving Hertz
a big advantage”
www-01.ibm.com/software/ebusiness/jstart/portfolio/hertzCaseStudy.pdf
