What is the importance of marketing in a global economy?

Marketing in a global economy has the importance of being the avenue for maintaining competitiveness among an increasing number of competitors; addressing changing consumer needs and patterns; addressing the burgeoning markets that are opened through the introduction of new technological access; meeting the challenge of the accelerating shift toward e-commerce as it supplants traditional commerce in physical locations; and meeting the challenge of building strong customer relations in a global marketplace with highly divergent tastes, preferences, needs, wants, backgrounds, and demographics.

An example of these areas of importance (among other possible areas of importance not mentioned, like establishing community partnerships when the "community" is a global one) is presented in the October 2016 DKSH Market Expansion Services Report that highlights and focuses on the Asian marketplace:

The study. . . delivers surprising insights on the rapidly changing conditions in Asian markets and describes the challenges when expanding to and in Asia.

The study highlights, among other things, how the development of new technological capabilities—which are delivering Internet access and Internet e-commerce capabilities to remote, previously technologically isolated areas—is rapidly increasing the size, depth, and range of the Asian marketplace and altering consumer demographic profiles. In order to maintain (or gain) a foothold in the global or—for the sake of illustration—in the Asian marketplace, a carefully thought-out, developed, and executed strategy for marketing is crucially important to succeed in building strong customer relations in an expanding and divergent global marketplace.