The World is Flat

While I Was Sleeping

The New World in Bangalore: Friedman sees two of the many shiny glass-and-steel skyscrapers and one that's still currently under construction. HP, Texas Instrument, Epson and even 3M have their offices in these buildings. Friedman said that he's not in Kansas, but he can't be in India. This must be the New World or maybe the Old World or can't it be the Next World?

On one hand, Columbus searched for an alternative route to get pearls, silk, spices, on the other hand, Friedman's goal is to look for call centers, software, knowledge worker, complex algorithms, transmission protocols and brainpower. The first thought he reached India and the latter did but both of them succeeded. Columbus got his pearls, silks and spices and Friedman found what he's looking for – the outsourcing/offshoring capital of the world, India.

The Ten Forces that Flattened The World

Thomas Lauren Friedman said that the world is flat. I can't see any reason to disagree. It's not only Bangalore, Bucharest, Beijing and Manila that's beginning to flattened but the whole world. Everybody has access to almost everything. Everybody could negotiate and transact anytime anywhere provided that they have Internet at reach.

The Collapse of Berlin Wall, Netscape, Workflow software, Open sourcing, Outsourcing, Offshoring, Supply chaining, Insourcing, In-forming, and "The Steroids" - these are the ten flatteners. But Offshoring is the one that should not be taken for granted – it could be the most powerful of all the forces that Friedman stipulated.

Thomas said that in Africa, everyday the lion and the gazelle run. The lion runs after the gazelle for it not to be hungry and the gazelle runs for it not to be eaten by the lion. America and China are like the lion and the gazelle but which is which?

Thirty years before, we could easily say that America is the lion and China is the gazelle, but today, we have to think again. Maybe America should run a little faster so that it could not be eaten alive by China.

How is this possible? Offshoring. China is the home of the many low-waged-laborers that's dying to have jobs like Americans have. And these people will work eagerly for the fraction of the cost if you would get the job done by your countrymen.

The Triple Convergence

Bizhub. What's a Bizhub? Is this some kind of a slang term? For Triassic people maybe. But for the people in the 21^st century, Bizhub is just a machine that scans, copies, emails, faxes, stores documents and all that jazz. Things like the Bizhub made offshoring a lot easier. You could be in Boise, Idaho and yet email instructions at your staff in the Philippines. Isn't it amazing?

The triple convergence is said to be the additional components that amplified the ten flatteners.

The Great Sorting Out

The IT Revolution and the Industrial Revolution is similarly inclined to each other. The only difference is that, circa 1848 proletarians are fighting for their rights to have equal benefits as the bourgeoisies. Today, Indian IT staff, Chinese manual laborers, Filipino call center agents and other low-waged-workers are working so hard to fight poverty.

America and Free Trade

Is offshoring bad for America? Does this phenomenon threatens American kids' future jobs? Does this decrease the opportunities for white-collared-jobs? The answer could be yes or could be no. It all depends to how America and other western countries take the heat of offshoring.

Friedman said that Americans are at their best if they are being challenged. I want to see Americans do their best in the leveled playing field.

The Untouchables

Thomas' advice to his little girls is to finish their homeworks because little girls and boys from India and China are starving to get their jobs. It drastically evolved from what his parents used to say: finish his dinner up because there are a lot of children that's starving in India and China.

He said that if you want be competitive, you have to be an untouchable. Friedman said that when the world went flat, the caste system went upside down too – so everybody must be an untouchable. He gave untouchables a new meaning – these are the people whose job cannot be outsourced.

But how?

Think like the profilers in Criminal Minds. They think like criminals in able to catch criminals. Then think like the untouchables to be them. Do what they do and exceed it. If they work 24 hours a day then work 25 hours a day. If they sleep only a minute a day then sleep for only 59 seconds a day. Be ahead, study hard, work harder and earn that untouchable degree.

The Quiet Crisis

"Why are we so focused on idolizing Britney Spears when competing countries are idolizing Bill Gates?"

This mind-numbing question of Friedman baffled me. What's wrong with idolizing Britney Spears? Britney Spear is an untouchable. I mean, can you outsource a Britney from India or China?

The answer would be no. But so do Bill Gates. Or not. Many youngsters around the world, particularly in China, India, Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia are aspiring to be Bill Gates. They stay up all night to study and get into the best IT schools thus earns them a degree that Google, Intel, HP, IBM and other technology-based companies are dying to hire and offshore.

There's nothing wrong with idolizing Britney, but sometimes, idolizing too much of fiction can lead to forgetting how to deal with the real McCoy. And that's the quiet crisis that has to be cured.

How?

By advanced education, proper training, and by enlightening the youth of the crisis. When these kids get out from school, they wouldn't be treated like babies anymore. It's a dog-eat-dog world. And nobody can help them but themselves.

This Is not a Test

Let's use Lou Gerstner's strategy that saved IBM from going kaput circa 1993. He used the notion of lifetime employability instead of the traditional lifetime employment. IBM will not guarantee lifetime employment unless you can guarantee them that you could stay employable. You have to make use of all up for grabs knowledge that you could get because everybody is doing the same and it will only takes days of stagnation before you know that you are obsolete.

And the concept of offshoring staff from around the world makes the challenge more interesting.

The Virgin of Guadalupe

God made the world... and everything else is made in China. Even the Virgin of Guadalupe. Need I say more? And the problem is when Mexico imports these statuettes from China because they can produce and ship it more cheaply than it would cost them than buying it from their relatives.

The bigger problem is, it's not only Mexico, even Egypt experiences this. China exports battery-operated lanterns thus crippling small and low-waged-workshops in Cairo. Philippines, the same developing country as China also happens to be part of the problem. The used to be very well known and famous Marikina shoes are being challenge by these low-priced, low-end, and also low-quality shoes made in China. Not only shoes but almost all sorts of commodities starting from china phones to fake Havaianas are being sold and invaded the country.

In the leveled ground, everybody is equal. You have to be at your best to beat the rest. And China, is taking advantage of this.

How Companies Cope

Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity. -Albert Einstein

How Companies Cope? These are the rules of Friedman to help companies cope up with the flattening:

Rule #1: When the world goes flat – and you are feeling flattened – reach for a shovel and dig inside yourself. Don’t try to build walls.

Rule #2: And the small shall act big . . . One way small companies flourish in the flat world is by learning to act really big. And the key to being small and acting big is being quick to take advantage of all the new tools for collaboration to reach farther, faster, wider, and deeper

Rule #3: And the big shall act small . . . One way that big companies learn to flourish in the flat world is by learning to act really small by enabling their customers to act really big.

Rule #4: The best companies are the best collaborators. In the flat world, more and more business will be done through collaborations within and between companies, for a very simple reason: The next layers of value creation – whether in technology, marketing, biomedicine, or manufacturing – are becoming so complex that no single firm or department is going to be able to master them alone.

Rule #5: In a flat world, the best companies stay healthy by getting regular chest X-rays and then selling the results to their clients.

Rule #6: The best companies outsource to win, not to shrink. They outsource to innovate faster and more cheaply in order to grow larger, gain market share, and hire more and different specialists – not to save money by firing more people.

Rule #7: Outsourcing isn’t just for Benedict Arnolds. It’s also for idealists.

Let's talk about rule #7. How do philanthropists and idealists open up a business?

They offshore.

They put up businesses in places like Cambodia where they know that they could help give decent-paying- jobs to its people whose wage ranges from $30-45 a month, educate and train them and make their lives better and the most beautiful part is profit from doing all of these.

The Unflat World

Friedman confessed that the world is not flat. Yes. After all the ballyhooing that it is flat, he realized that THE WORLD IS VERY UNFLAT.

Yes, dear people. It's true. So reserve the fear for more serious matters such as our kids will grow up to be actors-turned-politicians. But don't think that we can rest for all of the people around the world don't.

India may look like it will eat America alive from the previous chapters but it's just the facade. If you look beyond the shiny steel-and-glass buildings, IT staff stampede, and fake accents of call center agents, you will definitely see and realize that this country needs all the support it could get and not another critic that says that Indians steals jobs that supposed to be our children's.

The real untouchables never have a decent meal in their lives, drink water from the pavement, and never had a nice, warm and comfy clothes. They never see a bed and will get culture shock if you ask them to sleep in one. They live that way and they die that way. Same goes to the other third world countries that has people below poverty line.

So next time, don't think twice to offshore that project. You will not only gain more profit, but also help save these people from their seemed to be endless misery.

The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention

In the penultimate chapter of this book, Dell gave a very inspiring theory “No two countries that are both part of a major global supply chain, like Dell’s, will ever fight a war against each other as long as they are both part of the same global supply chain.”

Although it's not a guarantee that countries that are part of major supply chains will not go to war, Friedman said that by doing these, it will lessen the threat of another impending chaos.

Dell notebooks are co-designed by engineers from Austin, Texas and Taiwan. For a product to be successful, it has to be what the customers wanted and needed. So we have to be near our customers in able to know that, then we need another ideas from another part of the world to innovate on that. And this is the start of a good relationship between nations through supply-chaining.

11/9 versus 9/11

These two dates are the ultimate highlights of the book. These two dates, one opened the concept of the flat world and the latter is one of the destructive effect it brought to the world. Because there's the ten flatteners, the triple convergence and all the things from Bizhub to Wikipedia, planning a hijack and suicide bombing could be a piece of cake. And Osama took advantage of all the open-sources that he could get and killed innocent people who are like us, just wake up everyday and try to make a living.

But we should not be threatened by this. Globalization is not as shallow as Bin Laden. It's the proof that the world have transcended from what it was before Columbus discovered America. And it will everyday. We shouldn't build another Berlin Wall nor should hijack an airplane and crash it to another Twin Towers. Instead we should make use of globalization to make not only India, China, Philippines, Cambodia but the whole world a better place for our children.

As offshoring goes, so goes the world.

Back