“Slow and Steady Doesn’t Always Win the Race”

To even have the slightest chance of keeping pace with the competition in this world, as Friedman quotes, “you better start running.”  This crazy technological era we live in seems to have two options, keep up or be left wondering what the heck just happened.  Rather than leveling off and hitting the usual plateau after so much advancement as many would expect, the steady rise continues.  Now the trick the world as a whole must learn each day, is to simply run faster.

            The only thing scarier to a call center worker than outsourcing, is so similar that it is often confused as being the same thing.  The terror I speak of is off-shoring.  The difference between the two is that outsourcing breaks everything down into smaller pieces.  A certain specific function is now done by a group of people that may or may not be on the other side of the world.  It is the same work that was being done before, just most likely at a lower cost.  Everything is then combined again to achieve the same end result.  Off-shoring takes even the slightest chance of keeping your job and throws it out the window to land with a splat, usually in a country you never really knew existed.  The entire production is picked up and moved to a new location. Nearly nothing is left behind except the now jobless masses. The ultimate goal is to make the exact same product, service, etc as previously, just with much less overhead.  A very justifiable need when you are a business owner looking to get ahead in the world.

            Once this idea took hold, the only logical response was for everyone else to do it as well.  No one in their right mind would seriously try and emulate our fabled friend the turtle in a mad race against the rabbit.  The time to run had come, and run they did!  The surprising outcome to me in all this was a low-cost, yet high quality product.  With the world nearly flat, we no longer are forced to sacrifice quality for quantity!

            What came next is almost as terrifying to me but in a completely different way.  The frightening part came in the form of a single sentence by Friedman.  “Walmart today is the biggest retail company in the world, and it does not make a single thing.”  Mind. Blown!!  Walmart has become such a staple in our society that I never even paused long enough to consider this fact.  Wow!  By simply (although not a simple process) harnessing the insane power of supply-chaining, Walmart has made a name for itself and created a seemingly unstoppable empire.  Supply chains work to allow suppliers, retailers, and customers to cooperate in a more smooth and efficient way.  The end result is happy customers, which turns into very large dollar signs ($) for Walmart.  By purchasing directly from manufacturers and getting them to lower prices as much as possible, then creating a seamless supply-chain to get the product to distribution warehouses they gained even further advantage over competitors.  It is seriously no wonder it seems like there is, or will soon be, a Walmart on almost every corner.  Who can compete with logic like this?!

            Another question that will garner a similar response is, “Who has not heard of Google?”  Why is it when a random question is posed that no one seems to know the answer to, the most common response is, “Google it!”?  Google has flattened the world as we know it when it comes to accessing information.  By completely erasing boundaries that separate classes, languages, and economic status it revolutionized the industry.  They are able to track searches and target advertisements that are meaningful and relevant to each customer.  This information is then used to bill the advertisers directly for linking them to interested and potential consumers. The race is on!

            The good news in all this is that, in a flat world, running is easier!