The World is Flat

The other day on my Marketing class we discussed the book the World is Flat. My teacher made us see a video about the author talking to a group of university students. I wanted to share the information of the video with you. The author explains how the world has becoming flat. He first talks about the eras:

First Era (1490-1800) the world went from a size large to a size medium. Individuals start getting global through their countries
Second Era (1800-200)the world went from size M to S. Companies started globalizing. Individuals went global through their companies.
Third Era (2000-Future) the world went from size S to XS. Individuals started globalizing. Every individual gets more competitive.

After explaining the process, he talks about some events and calls them flatteners:
-11/9-->Berlin wall came down
-8/9/95-->Development of Netscape. Communication around the world becomes easier.
-Fiber optic cable improves the work flow
-Virtual work--> People connect with other people like never before
-Outsourcing
-Off shoring  in order to reduce costs, companies started taking the whole factory to other countries.
-Open sourcing  people working at home
-Global Supply Chain  Integrated SC and cross functional areas
-Informing  getting information in a easy way (Google)

These flatteners have made thing easier but at the same time difficult. There is more competition, the supply chain has become more complex and difficult to manage and there are more challenges. As the author says, there is no such thing as the American job any more. About this last statement, I watched the movie Outsourcing and it shows how some jobs have been outsourced to other countries. Nowadays, as professionals there is more competition, we are not competing anymore with our classmates but with everyone in the whole world. Every day is important to know more languages, have better skills and be more analytical in order to solve the new problems that this flat world brings.

Andrea Luque