Julia Santos, head of global business optimisation for the Johnson & Johnson Group, explains to Barbara Njau why outsourcing is essential to the company’s business strategy.

As the global economic balance of power shifts from west to east, international financial centres in Asia are growing in prominence at the expense of their developed world counterparts. But is this shift a permanent one?

Indonesia has achieved significant economic growth in the past three years and now, with the help of a new development plan, its government has set the ambitious target of transforming the country into a major economic power by 2025. Can Indonesia compete on the same stage as Asia's behemoth economies such as India and China, or will the basic issues of infrastructure and inflation continue to hold it back?

As the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – realise the decade-old prediction that they would become economic superpowers, attention now turns to the global economies that will follow them.