Book Report Part 1
Book: The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
This book starts out explaining about the experiences of many Americans and Europeans calling their software company, their bank, or Credit Card company and having the pleasure (or for some, difficulty) of speaking with someone bearing an Indian accent. Some of our taxes are even being done in India! This is evidence of the flat world. The fact that it is cheaper and in some cases, easier to route company calls to a call center in Mumbai, India or give software development jobs to Indian nationals, instead of keep it in the Silicon Valley is fascinatingly flattening the world. The idea for the flat world comes from the fact that Columbus “discovered” that the world was not flat, but was round. And when he did, he traveled the globe and the expansion to the west began. Now, the world is being flattened again as the “playing field” is being leveled. Where Columbus thought he had found India in 1492, ironically, India is where we come back to in recent years…as the world is flattened and India and America are more easily and lastingly connected. The world is flat!
The book is not about India, necessarily. It is in fact about the entire globe coming together under a force that some call “globalization”. The world is becoming smaller and smaller and flatter and the author of this book gives 10 main reasons for this. The fall of the Berlin wall is what Friedman claims started it all. The wall itself, not being the physical barrier that was keeping the west from the east, but in fact the mental barrier. When the Berlin wall fell, communism’s strength and allure also fell with it and the world was opened up. At this time information had just begun to flow more easily. People began to become empowered as the personal computer, and Windows operating systems became available. The next big flattener was the Internet, with Netscape as the portal and new and fast fiber optic technology to make transmission across the globe, possible. Next came workflow software so that work could be done on compatible applications from any part of the globe. Information was more easily transferred, and people could work from anywhere. The world was flattened as we began to share the load with others from other places. And speaking of sharing, the fourth phenomenon has been Shareware. Or free software applications (and even operating systems) obtained on the web. Now, the average Joe (or geek, as the book names them) can make software and share it with others. Information is no longer in the hands of corporations only!
Now, we come to the idea of Outsourcing. The idea that companies would use a company in India to get specific jobs done - like small pieces of a puzzle, where one piece is made in India. And ironically, India again is where outsourcing first began with the Y2K scare. Companies contracted Indians to help us with the “crisis”. And at this time, we began to experience another flattener, offshoring. The difference between outsourcing and offshoring is this: Outsourcing is contracting another company to do a specific job, whereas offshoring is picking up and moving an entire branch of a company or an entire factory and placing it’s entire operation in another locale. China has been the biggest contributor to our offshoring. We have multiple factories in China as of now, and their zeal and work ethic are causing our companies to work even harder to catch up! The final four are Supply-Chaining, Insourcing, In-forming, and The-Steroids and you’ll have to wait and see what these final four are about until the next entry!
