Chapter 2: Ten Forces that Flattened the World (although I will be talking about five…)

While there were ten forces that led up to the flattening of the world according to the author, I will speak about the ones that stood out the most to me, due to me not wanting to make this chapter’s post 10,000 words…

# 1 – Falling of the Berlin wall on 11/9/89.

This caught my attention for several reasons. First, it is a big event that I remember hearing about growing up, but did not yet understand at the time. Second, I remember reading that Pope John Paul II, someone I deeply admire, was very actively involved in getting rid of communism at the time and wanted to ensure all people the right to freedom. And lastly, this outbreak of freedom lead to more outbreaks of freedom like a ripple effect. This set the ground for all the other forces. Some of its effects were opening the formation of the EU, and common standards of accounting, banking, economies, etc. I had no idea that this one event in history affected so greatly our economies and how we do business today.


# 4 – Uploading

This one is both great and scary. It allows us to have a voice and not let the media dictate what can and cannot be published. I have used Wiki countless times, I am blogging right now for the first time, and YouTube is awesome for making dull presentations fun. The scary thing is, people can publish anything, which even if it is not true.

# 5 – Outsourcing

I plan on outsourcing my presentations one day when I am a higher up in a company. Doing this will save me time from trying to make it all pretty, and I can focus on other demands of my job as opposed to wasting time trying to make a good looking presentation.

# 7 – Supply Chaining

This one was pretty awesome in the way he described it. I applied my Operations Management class here in my mind when he was talking about Wal-Mart. The fact that Wal-Mart is number one, and it does not make one single thing, is pretty amazing. It goes to show how having an efficient supply chain in business really does dictate in great proportion of how your business will do. It is an unduplicated system, and it is kind of freaky how when I buy something off the shelf at my local Wal-Mart, it is automatically signaled over in their corporate headquarters. This flattener made me want to take supply chaining more seriously with my future organizations because I saw just how important it is to have an effective supply chain. However, it did bring to my attention that I should consider, when is saving money going overboard? Wal-Mart gives employees crappy wages, and that is not fair either. There needs to be a line between doing business efficiently, and treating our employees humanely by giving them decent wages instead of just letting the fat CEOs and higher-ups bank on saving money in a supply chain.

# 8 – Insourcing

I had absolutely no idea that UPS synchronizes global supply chains. I think it is very smart of Nike and other businesses to let UPS take over its supply chain because it saves them time, money and makes business transactions go faster. It also taught me that even if I am in a big business, I should not become too confident, because small businesses can act big now, leveling the competitive playing field in an already flat world.