Special Report - The World Is Flat

1. Special Report by: Carlo Senica

2. About The Author
Name: Thomas Loren Friedman
Born: July 20, 1953
• An American journalist, columnist and author
• Writes a twice-weekly column for The New York
Times
• He has written extensively on foreign
affairs including global trade, the Middle East,
globalization, and environmental issues.

3. The World Is
becoming Flat!!
"Tom, the playing field is being
leveled." Indians and Chinese
were going to compete for
work like never before, and
Americans weren't ready …
… several technological and political forces have
converged, and that has produced a global, Web-
enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms
of collaboration without regard to geography or
distance - or soon, even language.

4. The Ten Forces That Flattened the World
1. Fall of the Berlin Wall
Date: November 9, 1989
• Tilted the worldwide balance
of power toward democracies
and free markets
• Symbolized the end of the
Cold war
• Allowed people from other
side of the wall to join the
economic mainstream

5. The Ten Forces That Flattened the World
2. Netscape IPO (formerly known as Netscape Communications Corp.)
IPO date: August 9, 1995
• Offering sparked massive investment in fiber-optic
cables.
• 1st co. to attempt to capitalize the World Wide Web.
• Netscape and the Web broadened the audience for
the Internet from its roots as a communications
medium.

6. The Ten Forces That Flattened the World
3. Work flow software
• The rise of apps from
PayPal to VPNs enabled
faster, closer coordination
among distant employees.
• The ability of machines to
talk to other machines with
no humans involved.

7. The Ten Forces That Flattened the World
4. Open-sourcing
"the most disruptive force of all“
• Self-organizing
communities,
launched a collaborative revolution.
• Communities
uploading
and
collaborating on online projects.
Examples include open source
software, blogs, and Wikipedia.

8. The Ten Forces That Flattened the World
5. Outsourcing
• Friedman argues that
outsourcing has allowed
companies to split service
and
manufacturing
activities
into
components, with each
component performed in
most efficient, costeffective way.

9. The Ten Forces That Flattened the World
6. Offshoring
• Manufacturing's version of outsourcing.

10. The Ten Forces That Flattened the World
7. Supply-chaining
• Robust networks of suppliers, retailers,
customers increased business efficiency.
and

11. The Ten Forces That Flattened the World
8. Insourcing
• Friedman uses UPS as a prime example for insourcing, in
which the company's employees perform services
(beyond shipping) for another company.
• For example, UPS itself repairs Toshiba computers on
behalf of Toshiba. The work is done at the UPS hub, by
UPS employees.

12. The Ten Forces That Flattened the World
9. In-forming
• Google and other search engines are the prime
example. "Never before in the history of the planet
have so many people (on their own) had the ability to
find so much information about so many things and
about so many other people", writes Friedman.

13. The Ten Forces That Flattened the World
10. Wireless
• Like "steroids," wireless technologies pumped up
collaboration, making it mobile and personal.
• Personal digital devices like mobile phones, iPods,
personal digital assistants, instant messaging, and
voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

14. The Triple Convergence
Then ten factors could not have flattened the world all
on their own, Friedman explains that as each of the
factors came together, they had to spread and take root
to create the environment rich for flattening. He credits
this spread, the creation of complementary software
and the internet, and political factors that caused
several developing countries, including China, Russia,
India and Latin America, to open their borders at this
time with the creation of the perfect storm that led to
the rapid-fire pace of globalization.

15. References
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Friedman
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.05/friedman.html?pg=3&topic=friedman
&topic_set=
http://www.enotes.com/topics/world-flat/in-depth
http://www.enotes.com/topics/world-flat
http://www.wikisummaries.org/The_World_Is_Flat
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question435.htm
http://www.investopedia.com/terms