What the private sector can teach the world about cooperation

The global landscape is undergoing a profound transformation, from the hyperglobalization of the past three decades towards a more contested and fragmented state. As levels of uncertainty rise, leaders are being forced to reimagine international cooperation. In this divided world, the private sector can offer a lesson in successful collaboration.

Over a hundred years ago, the retail magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge is credited with declaring that “the customer is always right.” This maxim revolutionized his London department store and established business orthodoxy across the retail world.

By the 1990s and 2000s, customer service had become a science, using software systems that tracked behaviour. The focus on efficiency encouraged governments to accelerate globalization, sometimes over domestic considerations.

Interconnectedness increased dramatically in this period, with global trade’s share of world gross domestic product rising from roughly one-third in the 1990s to almost two-thirds by 2008. But an incongruity was also born: global markets generated enormous gains but the aggregate prosperity masked the negative impact on certain national sectors and regions.

Manufacturing, for example, declined from 17% of Britain’s economy in 1990 to approximately 10% by 2008, a pattern mirrored across Europe and the US. For governments, it seemed, the citizen was not “always right.”

Today, the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction.

Governments are looking to prioritise the immediate needs of citizens – employment, security, and local industry revival – over global agendas. This shift reflects the reality that their constituencies are demanding more stability and certainty at home.

However, trying to create a clear divide between interests at home and abroad obscures a complex reality. Foreign-policy objectives, including strengthening international institutions, advancing global health and pursuing climate action, may not deliver swift domestic results but they do generate substantial long-term pay-offs.

The danger is that if short-term demands for domestic benefits overwhelm medium and long-term geopolitical strategy, governments risk eroding the very prosperity they seek to protect.

The world’s most successful companies recognize this trap. They are balancing immediate consumer demands with sustained investment in growth and development.

The most competitive economies of the future will be those that can achieve the same balance: addressing domestic imperatives while pursuing long-term objectives that build stable, prosperous futures.

Businesses also show that today’s fractured global landscape does not make cooperation impossible.

Companies regularly partner with rivals to advance shared interests. Ford and Toyota, for example, have worked together to co-develop hybrid vehicles. Samsung and Apple, competitors in the smartphone market, leverage each other’s expertise. Leading AI companies have joined forces to establish safety protocols for frontier technology.

These collaborative mindsets are grounded in pragmatism. The same approach is required in the geopolitical landscape. Already, countries are starting to agree on digital trade standards, technology protocols and investment rules without waiting for unanimous multilateral agreement.

Once operational, these plurilateral frameworks can serve as blueprints that eventually migrate into broader, multilateral commitments.

This does not mean that multilateral institutions should fall by the wayside. The private sector has learned that an absence of protocols and institutions often breeds crises.

Revitalizing global frameworks is still crucial. However, the path to reforming or rebuilding global rules may be even messier than in the past, with a wider array of actors all expecting a voice.

Creating mini coalitions offers a solution to this. It mirrors the way in which successful companies navigate complex markets: they move forward with partners aligned on shared objectives rather than delaying action while they wait for universal buy-in. Revitalizing global co-operation requires a similar approach.

Instead of waiting for unanimity, countries must create smaller collaborations that can eventually lead to international alignment.

Businesses have shown the benefits of balancing near- and long-term interests, as well as competition and cooperation. The countries that follow their lead are those that will be best positioned for success in an increasingly fragmented world.