GLOBAL CHALLENGES AFFECTING BUSINESSES IN AN ERA OFSUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In a world of sustainable development, changes are going very fast, the main target of organizations especially the global and successful ones is to lead the market and increase their market share with a focus on having a long lifespan and sustainable working system both nationally and on the global scale. As such, the major role of managers is to understand and detect the new trends and challenges that influence their organizational sustainability. This should give organizations an opportunity to increase their market share and at same time to protect themselves from threats that may appear from these changes. In this paper we aim to explore those challenges related to sustainable development and analyze their potential impact on business and marketing strategies. Using the case of several organizations, these trends are highlighted and their benefits discussed. The ecological concerns with protecting the ecological systems, the ethical considerations when it comes to production and consumer concerns, globalization, the growing emerging markets, the rise of the sharing economy, accelerating technological trends, mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances, deregulation and privatization, in addition to changes in business practices (downsizing, outsourcing, offshoring and re-engineering) are all trends that are discussed in this paper. In light of this analysis, organizations must be flexible and ready to adjust to the external environmental changes that have huge impacts on their sustainability. Previous research have shown that the lifespan of organizations decreased due to these major changes of trends, so following and understanding these trends will be a competitive advantage for organizations in Lebanon and the world