The scale of the problem is staggering. Each year, 1.6 billion tons of food worth about $1.2tr are lost or go to waste — one-third of the total amount of food produced globally. To put the figure in perspective, that is 10 times the mass of the island of Manhattan.

Boston Consulting Group has developed xChange, a Web-based marketplace to help ocean carriers reposition empty containers around the world.

If there had been any doubt as to how quickly the global economic landscape - and the market perceptions of it - can change, it would have been erased by events during August and September 2015. Concerns about the Chinese economy and fretting over the next move by the U.S. Federal Reserve triggered massive global market volatility in stocks, commodity prices, and exchange rates. And that turmoil underscored a critical imperative: leaders of companies operating around the world need to move beyond old views and conventional wisdom as they set global strategies.

You feel the energy soon after disembarking at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. All of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, seems to throb with bustling masses of people. Bridges, expressway overpasses, and major new neighborhoods are continually under construction. Evidence of the country's rising disposable income is on display at crowded shopping malls such as Jamuna Future Park, the largest in South Asia, and new billboards, which seem to cover every available space, advertise products as varied as packaged foods and smartphones.

Over the past few decades, the rise of emerging markets - initially as sources of cheap labor and then as rapidly growing consumer markets and centers of capital investment and innovation - has caused most companies of size and stature to enlarge their global ambitions. But despite this concerted push to globalize, few companies are ready to build and run truly global organizations and operations.

Despite a concerted push to expand their overseas presence in recent decades, few companies are ready to build and run truly global organizations and operations, according to a survey of executives conducted jointly by The Boston Consulting Group and IMD business school.