Improving the means of communication
Changing the way people interact and improving the means of communication can have significant world economic impacts. Economic development largely depends on how fast information and communication take place. New technology has done a lot to improve communication; the contemporary world has leveraged on new technology devices like phones, laptops, and tablets, improved network connectivity to connect and interact with one another in a faster, easy and convenient way. The world is much interconnected. This interconnectivity spurs economic development that is typically gained because of the increased interconnectedness among regions, countries, and continents. This results in better standards of living and overall improved quality of life (Gurgul & Lach, 2014). The world economy hinges on its ability to improve communication and globalization. New technology and globalization have enhanced smart mobility, the faster means of communication using digital devices. Increased connectivity through the use of technology can be described as smart mobility. Social interaction can impact the economy in various ways, improve businesses, sharing of positive ideas, improve education and economic growth at large.
Improved and faster mobility can improve business and better the world economy (Gurgul, 2014). In this direction, therefore, this paper in detail discusses different ways in which increased mobility can boost the world economy. Mobility changes the way people interact; using faster digital devices to communicate, improved travel, and communication among other positive impacts of globalization spark multinational businesses leading to increased income, developing countries, and lower consumer prices, thus improving the world economy. To properly discuss the economic implications of smart mobility, this paper will be divided into parts. First contemporary mobility and globalization will be discussed in general, then the economic impact of mobility will be addressed then finally, the last section is the conclusion.
Smart mobility and globalization
Each era has an issue that needs people to think and solve. The biggest problem that the 21st century is facing is the increased population, especially in cities and urban areas where the population is mostly concentrated. The large number of people living in urban areas increase energy consumption, cause traffic congestions, and pollutes the environment. These issues have a negative economic impact; however, with the new technology, there are solutions to these and other issues that impact the world economy. Smart mobility is the promotion of sustainable mobility that guarantees safe, fast, and convenient means of transport and communication that offer solutions to the environmental problem.
Conversely, globalization is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments across the globe. Due to technology that has advanced transport and communication, people are now able to communicate with people in far parts of the world using technological devices and platforms (Samimi & Jenatabadi, 2014). Besides, improved transportation enables people to travel over long distances within a short time. In essence, globalization and smart mobility are inseparable; these two increase interaction and integration among people using technology. Globalization and smart mobility involve goods and services, technology, data, and economic resources of capital. As people move freely and easily from one region to the other, as people continue to interact freely and in a more convenient way through the use of better means of communication due to technological advancement, the world has been pulled firmly together. When talking about smart mobility, globalization, and how these have changed the way people interact and the economy, it is prudent to understand that the resulting economic impact can either be positive, negative, or both. In the case of contemporary mobility, there are many positive and negative impacts resulting from unfettered people and goods movement from one region to the other as well as improved communication.
Improved and faster mobility can improve businesses and better the world economy
Improved mobility due to globalization and technological advancement has and continues to have profound effects on the world. More rapid mobility affects how individuals, companies, and even governments do businesses (Freeman, 2010). Modern technology fueled by the surge of business and technological innovation allows cross border trading at a pace unseen previously. This has resulted in an increase in trade, multinational businesses, and international trade. Faster mobility ad globalization, therefore, has several economic benefits.
i.) Improved information and communication technology that sparks economic uptick
Modern technology revolves around information technology. As technology continues to advance, the use of systems and technological devices like the use of phones, laptops, and computers to store, retrieve, and send information continues to expand. Technology is the sum of techniques, skills, and processes used in the production of goods and services. In contrast, information technology is the use of these systems to store, retrieve, and send information. Information technology improves mobility and world globalization. Several industries have arisen from information technology that brings the world together, improves communication, and spur economic uptick.
First, it is essential to understand the relationship between improved mobility and information technology. Improved mobility has led to the expansion of the information technology; improved mobility has helped countries to gain foreign knowledge, international access innovation, and enhance competition (Ying & Chang, 2014). All these strengthen the firm’s incentives to innovate and adopt foreign technology. Therefore improved mobility has created information technology whose economic benefits cannot be underestimated. Between 2010 and 2019, over 20 million IT-related jobs were created globally, and the sector employed millions of people globally in that decade. In the United States, IT workers earn more than $80, 000 a year; this is more than 74% more than the average worker who earns around $45200. Besides creating millions of high paying jobs, Information Technology comprises a significant share of the GDP. The It industry makes billions of money each year that contribute to the GDP. In the United States, the IT sector was responsible for 75% of the US’s productivity growth between 2002 and 2010; it accounts for 20% of Canada’s GDP since 1995. In the last decade, IT has made the world economy trillions of money and generally grew the world economy by a certain percentage.
The internet has accounted for more than 21 percentage of the world’s GDP growth. The IT benefits cannot be exhausted; the field creates new sectors of doing business like eCommerce, creates millions of well-paying jobs worldwide, improves innovation, drives productivity and GDP growth, and help build high-growth companies and businesses. All these have contributed immensely to the growth of the world economy. Information technology is one of the products of free mobility, with free mobility countries gets to share information and innovation that led to the spread of information technology and new technological advancements.
ii.) Improved communication and interaction
Smart mobility has changed how people communicate through digital platforms. The relationship between customers, workers, and employers as changed due to smart mobility. With smart mobility, people do not need to move around to transfer and receive information. Customers do not need to go to stores to buy goods. Neither do companies have to go around physically to sell their products. Smart mobility limits how people physically travel and improves communication and interaction through digital platforms.
Digitalization has transformed people’s jobs, businesses, and health. In Canada, up to one-third of the workforce or millions of people could be transformed by 2020. About half of the paid activities have transformed due to smart mobility; now many jobs adopt the use of automated robots and the use of artificial and machine learning (Brown & Lauder, 2017). Digitalization has improved how people interact in various online platforms, and all these activities work towards improving the world economy. Through eCommerce, companies do not necessarily have to have physical locations; there are companies like Alibaba that sell products globally in online stores where a customer orders the products online. Businesses have significantly transformed, people interact online, and businesses can be conducted on online platforms. Marketing to a wide range of potential consumers at a smaller cost is another critical dimension that smart mobility has improved the economy. Companies now utilize multiple online interaction platforms like Facebook, Twiter, company websites, Instagram, and many other platforms to engage with the customers. Online marketing reduces the cost of physically locating the customers to market a product and the time it takes to market their products to many people. Through online marketing, companies can market to millions of people globally in seconds.
The economy has grown due to better production means, better and fast marketing methods, and smart mobility has greatly revolutionized businesses (Kilic, 2015). This technology provides all the necessary conditions to ensure business growth through increased price transparency for markets to function efficiently. All the information people need to gather about the available products, where they are available, and at what exchange rates are now available, this fulfills the matching and price discovery of markets.
iii.) Creation of the digital economy
The digital economy is the economy that focuses on digital technologies like digital computing. The digital economy covers the activities covered by the web and other digital communication technologies. Due to globalization and technological advancement, the digital economy has emerged with its components, including e-business, e-business infrastructure, and e-commerce. In a few years, there is a tremendous growth of digital platforms and their influence on daily lives. Now consumers are influenced by what they see on the media, so this digital economy is, in a way exploiting economic opportunities. The digital economy has been integrated into every aspect of life, including education, banking, entertainment, and healthcare. With smart mobility, people have most of their daily work done on the internet. Technological growth has increased the use of the internet, and this has led to a dramatic rise in investments in things related to the internet, including software, services, digital communication, and hardware development. Many companies have sprouted out through the use of the internet and the rise of smart mobility; these companies like Google, YouTube, Facebook, and many others have employed millions of people generating billions of money to the world economy while helping businesses and other companies that depend on them to grow. The digital economy has pushed the economy into overdrive, eCommerce is essential not only in selling but also creating, marketing, and distributing products. Moreover, the digital economy has introduced new goods and services. The days of DVDs and CD’s have been replaced by digital music and digital films that can be stored online and be shared online. There is no need for tangible products anymore, and this applies to other industries like banking and insurance. Transactions are done online. Transparency has also improved. Due to smart mobility, people do not need to visit banks to interact with bank officials physically, most transactions, inquiries, and even loan applications and may other banking services are being conducted digitally. This has reduced how people interact in person. Digital transactions have helped in curbing black money, reduce corruption in the market and make the economy more transparent
iv.) Improve free trade
Smart mobility has enhanced transport systems. People now move from one place to the other freely and in a safe and faster manner. This improved and convenient movement has improved free trade. Countries can exchange goods and resources for promoting regional economic growth. With free business, companies can move about and find resources wherever they are in the world and produce products where they have a competitive advantage; this means producing goods at a lower opportunity cost. This is very important to the economy. First, when goods produced cheaply due to easy access to resources, the products are much affordable to the consumers. Free trade leaves international trade unrestricted. Due to globalization and fast mobility, countries can leverage free trade to offer great consumer choices of goods since the goods can be produced at any given part of the world be distributed globally, this improves businesses and the economy at large. Domestic manufactures are also able to benefit free trades by exporting their goods to the international markets.
v.) Free movement of labor
With improved transport systems, better communication systems due to improved mobility, people can now move freely from one place to the other to offer services or search for jobs. Increased free movement of people and labor migration has several advantages to both the individual and the world economy (Langhammer & Foders, 2006). Technological innovation has changed the way people interact. Technological devices like phones and computers offer workers an opportunity to connect with people and interact with people globally. This means people can work from home. Companies can now hire workers from all over the world, and these workers can work from their homes or countries without necessarily visiting the company workplace. If a country experiences high unemployment, various oversea companies can hire people to work for them online. Labor migration and integration help to improve geographical equality.
Besides the use of technological devices to work oversea, free mobility has opened borders, and people can freely move to countries with opportunities. For instance, the European Union has opened borders for several countries where there are no movement restrictions. This means people move freely without any limitation, do businesses anywhere within the European Union. This process of labor migration helps countries with a labor shortage, increase productivity, and boosts world economic growth.
vi.) Business competitive advantages
Smart mobility and globalization enable companies to emulate other multinational companies, automate production, and have more sophisticated technology techniques. Sharing and borrowing of technological information through online classes and online learning make it easy for students to learn in international schools from their homes. The same happens in the world of business, where companies can share production knowledge to a wide area. Businesses now are copying others to grow; technological learning has improved production, and companies can sell their products online to multiple countries. Smart mobility has given way for the development of multinational companies and international trade that accumulatively helps the economy to strengthen.
The negative economic impact of smart mobility and globalization
Smart mobility has many advantages that spur economic growth. Conversely, smart mobility and globalization have negative economic implications. For instance, online communication and the sharing of information using digital devices can be hazardous. Vast sums of money have been lost through online scamming, online fraudulent activities. Hackers use online platforms to steal from the unsuspecting public. There are cases where banks have been robbed where the money is transferred to hackers’ accounts. In essence, the world equally loses billions of cash through online scamming and hacking each year. These impacts the economy since institutions that face these scams end up losing revenue, thus affecting overall performance. On the same note, overdependence on digital communication is not always effective. Businesses are now interconnected, and performance is mostly dependent on software. When connections face downtime, such companies end up stagnating all operations for hours, thus losing a lot of money. Equally, sharing information through digital devices has led to significant information leakage, especially is the systems are not well secured, thus exposing institutions to scammers and the public. A data breach is also another essential concern when talking about smart mobility and smart interaction. Using online platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms, chances are the user’s data can be leaked to the third party. This data can be used in different ways to fraud or cause harm. Facebook has faced lawsuits after millions of users had their data unsecured and openly left to fraudsters. All these fraudulent activities, hacking, and data breaches have serious economic consequences.
Smart mobility enables people and goods to traverse the globe. Globalization or rather smart mobility has the potential to spread contagious diseases and viruses to all corners of the world. For instance, due to intelligent mobility, fast transport network, and globalization, COVID 19 (Corona Virus) that started in a small market in China in December 2019 spread to almost all corners of the world, killing thousands of people across the globe and causing fatal economic impacts. The virus spread fast since smart mobility enables people and goods infected with the virus to travel from one continent to the other. The virus has led to companies’ closure, educational institutions shut down, and some countries have had a total lockdown to fight the epidemic. In essence, smart mobility and globalization can have detrimental economic impacts that can seriously bring the world economy to low levels. Unfettered movement of people and goods across the globe is hazardous and needs a rethink.
Environmental degradation is another significant negative impact of globalization. Due to globalization, businesses have mushroomed, and new companies are coming up to fill the gaps that innovation creates each day. This technology has come up with industries that emit gases and waste products that potentially contribute to environmental degradation and global warming. Nonetheless, technological advancement has led to the development of machines, vehicles, and other power-intensive electric devices that emits gases that destroy the environment (Heininen, 2015). Globalization has many negative environmental impacts. Developed countries can take advantage of underdeveloped countries’ weak environmental regulatory policies to degrade the environment. The world loses a lot of money due to global warming and ecological degradation. The economic cost of environmental degradation does not in any way match the benefits of smart mobility and globalization. Therefore imminent negative economic impacts that globalization and smart mobility pose to the world will do many effects than the benefits.
Smart mobility has promoted poverty and reduced employment opportunities, thus impacting the economy. Smart mobility gives companies an excellent opportunity to move freely around the world where they can find cheap labor. Many companies have moved their production facilities from one place to the other in search of cheap labor, the workers in the countries where these companies dodge are left jobless. In one way or the other, globalization has decreased job opportunities and reduced standard wages, thus contributing to raising levels of poverty. Along this line of thought, the idea that advancements in technology and an increase in productivity can create more jobs has been surpassed by the fact that technology is automating the world, and more jobs are being taken by software and robots.
Smart mobility and unfettered movement of people can make developing countries more miserable. Developing countries attract multinational companies since these companies enjoy cheap labor in developing countries. For instance, the cheap labor in China attracts multinational companies to move their productivity from highly competitive markets. For example, the cost of producing Apple products in China cannot be compared with the cost of producing the same product in the United States; therefore, Apple would opt to take all its productivity to China and have the products assembled in America. This kind of practice makes developing countries poor since developing countries will not benefit from their labor, low wages, and other elements such as weaker labor laws, easygoing policies pertaining to doing businesses in developing countries (Ibrahim, 2013). Besides, as developing countries attract multinational companies, the market competition will rise, and native or local products will lose the competition. These factors, in several other ways, affect the growth of developing countries.
Conclusion
To sum up, smart mobility defines the contemporary world. The world has become a small village where moving from one part of the world to the other has been made accessible due to technological advancements that have improved transport and safe means of moving. People now move freely; countries have opened their borders, and companies can do businesses globally. Smart mobility and globalization improve technology and communication are now fast and convenient. These technological impacts have contributed to the growth of the world economy and completely changed how people interact. People now all over the world are held together and communicate with each other regardless of the location using technological devices like phones, laptops, and computers. People can move to places courtesy of safe and fast means of transport.
Smart mobility has improved the economy through the creation of many jobs through information technology, fast means of communication that will enhance the transfer of information, knowledge, and skills improved businesses through global marketing and improved movement of labor, free trade, and the creation of digital economy. Besides the positive effects of smart mobility and globalization, several negative impacts should not be overlooked. Smart mobility has led to the spread of many contagious diseases that can harm the world economy for decades; it can lead to poverty, making developing countries more deficient and environmental degradation. In as much as smart mobility is excellent, it needs a rethink and policies should be put in place to guide or rather fetter globalization.