The BRIC’s is a popular term coined to describe the big four emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China, in the new Millennium. Its use in culture has become symbolic of the shift in economic power away from the traditional G7 countries, including the well-known economic powerhouses of the USA, Japan and in Europe, Germany. At the moment it is predicted that the BRIC countries will overtake the G7 countries by 2027 in terms of economic power.
So will this change the world as we know it?
Will English still be considered the international Lingua Franca, which it so often is thought to be? Perhaps, but when there are almost as many native language Mandarin speakers in the world as compared with the overall amount of English speakers, is English actually the international language brand of the world it professes to be?
Are these new emerging markets something to fear or embrace? Will the rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China even happen as expected? After all these predictions were made before a global recession that has left no economy untouched.
There are lots of questions to consider!
One for thing is for sure; if the transition of economic power over the next few years does occur, my advice would be to embrace the situation. Learn the languages of these countries; Spanish, Russian, Hindi and Mandarin etc. It may be harder than learning a European language because of the effects of the differing alphabets in the Russian, Hindi and Mandarin languages, but you will be better suited to the new professional opportunities. Embrace and discover the differences within the etiquettes of these cultures; find out how they do business and act around their friends. Worldwide development is continuous not incremental, change happens throughout time and history without us even noticing until it has occurred. Globalisation and the internet have only sped this effect up! Will you flourish in the ever growing economies of the emerging markets and become a BRIC Breaker?