The World Is Flat

The World is Flat, describes how author Thomas L. Friedman views the flatness in dimensions of the world due to world events, changes in business operations and technological advances. These are tools in the business world that are tested everyday and there were few points that Friedman mentioned, which caught my attention while reading his book. For example, the supply chain is a great strategy, and the company that seems to run it, is the world famous Wal-mart. According to Friedman on page 129, “Supply chaining is a method of collaborating horizontally among suppliers, retailers, and customers to create value”. Wal-mart sets standards for other companies to follow. For being the heavyweight champ of the business world, there isn’t a contender worthy enough to take over Wal-mart and add changes to existing strategies. For every business text book that I have used, Wal-mart was always mentioned and for this, their strategies and tactics have made them the biggest company in the world.

With big business, the best tactic is to cut the cost for you as much as possible. This will give you a higher profit, and Wal-mart does this by having all their products shipped to their own warehouses and then delivered by their own trucks to the Wal-mart stores. This allows them to first, buy a massive amount of merchandise from a manufacturer without having them ship it to all the different Wal-mart’s. This would be a costly result. The second, is when a product is bought, Wal-mart’s computer system marks off what is bought and the manufacturer knows how much they have to ship. This results in having key internal strength by having this information on hand in their data base. This isn’t the only supply chain, but it is the best so far and the best advantage about supply chaining is having an accurate number that gets ordered when you need it, and allowing the manufacturers to collaborate and plan how much they will produce. I remember When I worked at Best Buy three years ago and I had to reorder products, we had a similar system but not on such a grand scale. Sometimes, if another Best Buy in the area had too much of one product, that store would disperse it amongst the other Best Buys’. This wasn’t effective because if the main warehouse wasn’t informed, then they would mark it down as internal theft. This resulted in employees stealing ,which kept everyone on high alert.

Another example in the flat world, is the mass usage of the internet. The digital world, where e-mails, cell phones, and lab tops have become daily essentials, like suits and briefcases that businessmen wear. This digital age has blossomed into a multi billion dollar industry and has no where to go but up. Through the internet, you can find anything you want in the flat world, even if your clientel is in Hong Kong and your company is based in Idaho. No matter where you are, through use of the internet and the intranet you can keep an eye on the company you’re managing. It was mentioned in the book that a manager shouldn’t be afraid of the flattening, but adapt to it. Management should focus on outsourcing in order to provide a great value and not as an alternative route to save money. Providing a value will keep you in business and when running a business you have to be realistic with the company in order to decide on what it is that you’re providing or offering. An example of this is Starbucks. Starbucks know that they are pricey, but they also know that they have quality product on high demand and as long as they provide their product with freshness and the experience when drinking the coffee, then they kept their promise to their customers.

A third example, that was