My perspective on clustering then versus now

Since the dawn of the clustering and agglomeration era the world have been constantly developing. But until recently the barriers of communication across borders have been a major obstacle for cooperation. Just imagine if for 25-30 years ago you wanted to contact a company that could develop solutions for your company. You would be limited to those you either had in your network or those that where accessible through a limited amount of medias available. The thought of having a not so known company across the other side of the world, in a country where your contracts would be mostly considered null and void if you took them to court, would be unimaginable. Even if you knew about them, and had a way to contact them, you would have no way you could trust them. These issues made the cluster concept very valuable. You would be able to expand your network, develop trust and share experiences with related businesses close to you, who most likely had some of the same issues and problems you had. The lack of reliable ways to check out your foreign partners drove the need to be close.

But lately the definition of clustering seems to get blurred out. You could see this is the articles covering what is known as network clusters where you have clusters communicating with clusters to form international cluster effects. Also clusters in the Norwegian markets include businesses in Stockholm, Sweden as a part of their cluster partners. The purpose of the geographically close knowledge clusters seems to be loosing headway to international cooperation, and there are several reasons it should. Positive effects of global knowledge networking seems to be less lock in effect, bigger markets, larger more specified supplier base  and more diverse knowledge in put. By developing and maintaining international relations with a long time business perspective you might be able to generate some cluster effects and also additional effects for your business.