For more than a decade, the economic success of these emerging markets has driven global growth and lifted millions of people out of poverty. Companies that built international businesses around such markets have found important new sources of growth and lowered their costs.

For executives who have come to view the global economy as essentially a two-speed world"”composed of sluggish, mature developed economies and rapidly growing developing economies"”the change in fortunes has been jarring. For the next few years at least, companies will have to learn to shift gears, perhaps frequently, as they navigate the global economy. Instead of treating all the big developing economies as emerging markets, they must learn to approach them as diverging markets"”economies that are growing at different speeds, experiencing different degrees of financial health, and facing different structural challenges.

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Keywords: outsourcing, foreign direct investment, international trade, global logistics, overseas business operations, logistics & supply chain