Over the past 15 years, multinational companies have entered rapidly developing economies (RDEs) to achieve cost advantages and expand their customer base—mainly targeting customers at the top of the wealth pyramid. They have not, however, extracted the full value of their investments.

Today, multinationals find themselves increasingly challenged by RDE-based companies entering the global scene and vying for leadership. And some of the challengers are likely to emerge stronger post-economic-crisis, benefiting from their home market growth, low-cost advantage, and opportunistic acquisitions.

Despite their slowdown, the RDEs will remain an important growth engine for many multinationals. But companies will need to contend with a new set of growth and competitive dynamics as the RDEs respond to the crisis. At the same time, leveraging the RDEs for cost savings has become more complex in the new global environment.

We help clients develop strategic insight through strategic foresight. Our world-class Global Forces research center continually monitors and assesses the global forces that senior executives must consider to stay ahead of the long-term trends that are reshaping business as we know it. Based on deep macroeconomic insight and in-depth market-level research, Fusion offers the most current knowledge on trends and forces presented in in granular detail. We also provide deep insight into the impact of such major forces as the role and influences of rapidly emerging markets; the need to accelerate productivity in developed economies; the ever-increasing connectedness of the global economy; the tension between rising resource consumption and the desire for environmental sustainability; and governments’ ever-larger role in the economy.

Our team helps our clients recognize and capture the growth opportunities created by these trends—and protects their businesses from the downsides of emerging risks. We do this through three core capabilities:

• Identifying and responding to trends
• Managing uncertainty
• Macroeconomic insights