Succeeding in a Flat World - How to gain an advantage when the playing field is level
Succeeding in a Flat World - How to gain an advantage when the playing field is level
We read about how the price of long distance telephony, internet access and air travel is making it easier to communicate and travel. Often we only think about these in terms of holidays and communicating with the cousins in Sydney Australia or the college buddy who is working the oil fields in Saudi Arabia.
We often marvel at how WalMart manages to provide low prices and keep their shelves filled and how does Dell deliver a custom designed laptop to us in just a week.
These are all issues that Thomas Friedman deals with in The World is Flat A Brief History of the 21st Century. As a journalist for the New York Times, Friedman has been watching and documenting the massive economic changes that have been occurring in North America.
The cause of these changes are all well know events that have taken place since 1989 and he describes them as events that have caused the world to become flat. A flat world is one where people and companies can compete directly, easily and on a level playing field.
10 Flatteners
1. 11/9/89 Berlin Wall Came Down and suddenly everyone in Russia and Eastern Europe can communicate and compete freely with the rest of the world.
2. 8/9/95 Netscape went Public providing average people with
3. Work Flow Software Collaborative Software
4. Open-Sourcing Making Source Code Public
5. Outsourcing Maybe someone outside of your company can do it better (and cheaper too)
6. Offshoring Maybe someone somewhere else can do it better (and cheaper too)
7. Supply Chaining Integrating everyones systems for more efficient production
8. Insourcing Maybe that company should become integrated into my company for even better results
9. In-forming Google everything
10. The Steroids Wireless, Digital and Personal communications are pushing the ability for global personalized communications
These 10 flatteners now created a triple threat or opportunity for North American businesses:
1. New Playing Field
The growth of personal computing power with the growth of bandwidth means companies can operate from anywhere with anyone and not have to have everyone in the same room.
2. New Processes & Habits
Companies now build horizontal value chains vs. vertical command chains
Instant communication from client purchasing an item to manufacturer for a shelf replacement and collaborating with other companies to build new products rather than building them completely by themselves.
3. New Players
All of a sudden there are a whole new range of competitors for North American and European business including:
China
India
Russia
Eastern Europe
Middle East
Friedman went a step further and analyzed companies that succeeded in the face of Flat World competition. He broke it down into seven different strategies that companies need to implement:
1. Understand yourself Look at what your company does best. Focus on that.
2. Act Big Even if you are a small company by taking advantage of the collaboration tools it is possible to make your target audience think you are a big organization.
3. Act Small Let your clients take control by allowing them to ask for and get customized solutions.
4. Collaborate Create value by working together with other companies
5. Really, Really, Really know your customers and sell them the information
6. Outsource to win not to shrink
7. Outsourcing to third world countries can be good too. By sending work overseas you can help strengthen local economies and to help educated workers get employment locally and to keep their wages in the local economy.
Succeeding in a Flat World How to gain an advantage when the playing field is level - To learn more about this author, visit Jim Adams's Website.
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Canadian businesses have been facing a completely new set of challenges and over the past decade. We read about these challenges all the time and some times we arent even aware that they are. Headlines in the business section tell us about manufacturing jobs being shifted to China, Malaysia and Taiwan. White collar jobs being shifted to India such as programming and customer service agents in call centres.
We read about how the price of long distance telephony, internet access and air travel is making it easier to communicate and travel. Often we only think about these in terms of holidays and communicating with the cousins in Sydney Australia or the college buddy who is working the oil fields in Saudi Arabia.
We often marvel at how WalMart manages to provide low prices and keep their shelves filled and how does Dell deliver a custom designed laptop to us in just a week.
These are all issues that Thomas Friedman deals with in The World is Flat A Brief History of the 21st Century. As a journalist for the New York Times, Friedman has been watching and documenting the massive economic changes that have been occurring in North America.
The cause of these changes are all well know events that have taken place since 1989 and he describes them as events that have caused the world to become flat. A flat world is one where people and companies can compete directly, easily and on a level playing field.
10 Flatteners
1. 11/9/89 Berlin Wall Came Down and suddenly everyone in Russia and Eastern Europe can communicate and compete freely with the rest of the world.
2. 8/9/95 Netscape went Public providing average people with
3. Work Flow Software Collaborative Software
4. Open-Sourcing Making Source Code Public
5. Outsourcing Maybe someone outside of your company can do it better (and cheaper too)
6. Offshoring Maybe someone somewhere else can do it better (and cheaper too)
7. Supply Chaining Integrating everyones systems for more efficient production
8. Insourcing Maybe that company should become integrated into my company for even better results
9. In-forming Google everything
10. The Steroids Wireless, Digital and Personal communications are pushing the ability for global personalized communications
These 10 flatteners now created a triple threat or opportunity for North American businesses:
1. New Playing Field
The growth of personal computing power with the growth of bandwidth means companies can operate from anywhere with anyone and not have to have everyone in the same room.
2. New Processes & Habits
Companies now build horizontal value chains vs. vertical command chains
Instant communication from client purchasing an item to manufacturer for a shelf replacement and collaborating with other companies to build new products rather than building them completely by themselves.
3. New Players
All of a sudden there are a whole new range of competitors for North American and European business including:
China
India
Russia
Eastern Europe
Middle East
Friedman went a step further and analyzed companies that succeeded in the face of Flat World competition. He broke it down into seven different strategies that companies need to implement:
1. Understand yourself Look at what your company does best. Focus on that.
2. Act Big Even if you are a small company by taking advantage of the collaboration tools it is possible to make your target audience think you are a big organization.
3. Act Small Let your clients take control by allowing them to ask for and get customized solutions.
4. Collaborate Create value by working together with other companies
5. Really, Really, Really know your customers and sell them the information
6. Outsource to win not to shrink
7. Outsourcing to third world countries can be good too. By sending work overseas you can help strengthen local economies and to help educated workers get employment locally and to keep their wages in the local economy.
Succeeding in a Flat World How to gain an advantage when the playing field is level - To learn more about this author, visit Jim Adams's Website.
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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