Third wave of Globalization

Its perhaps a Neil Armstrong moment. " A small step for Tatas but a giant leap for Indian Globalization (efforts) ". Tata's bold $10 billion acquisition offer to buy Corus Steel (UK's largest steelmaker) could be a testimonial to what many believe is the "third wave of Globalization" . They may or may not succeed in this acquisition but the soaring ambitions of firms in developing nations is there to stay.

The International Herald Tribune says, " Across much of the world, India is still known as a land of elephants and maharajahs. But one day, it might be known for Tata.

You may never have heard of the Tata Group. But there is a fair chance you have sipped a Tata drink, put on Tata shoes or slept in a Tata hotel in New York, London or Sydney. Your company's software may be made by Tata. The ball bearings in your power drill may be from Tata. When you last checked e-mail, telephoned Beijing or used Skype, Tata's 60,000 kilometers, or 37,000 miles, of deep-sea cables may have connected you.

And all this was before Tata made a bid of $10 billion including debt on Tuesday to buy the Corus Group, a British-Dutch steel maker. If completed, the deal would make it one of the world's top producers and nudge Tata closer to the status of global household name. Corus said Tuesday that talks were ongoing and that it was too early to comment.

The world has gotten used to the notion of India as an outsourcing powerhouse teeming with low-cost labor. But India is now emerging as a new kind of powerhouse: a fount of the next generation of global megacorporations.

"This is the third wave of globalization," said Arindam Bhattacharya, a director at the Boston Consulting Group in New Delhi and co-author of a recent study on emerging multinational companies. The first wave was colonialism, he said, and the second wave was the penetration of developing countries by multinationals from the United States, Europe and Japan.