The Flat World
The Ten Forces That Flattened the World
These are the ten factors describing how the world is becoming “flat” or globally interconnected, thereby allowing businesses all over the world to compete on a more equal playing field.
1. The New Age of Creativity (the fall of the Berlin Wall)
This event “tipped the balance of power across the world toward those advocating democratic, consensual, free-market-oriented governance, and away from those advocating authoritarian rule with centrally planned economies.”
2. The New Age of Connectivity (the rise of the Web)
This event “enabled more people to communicate and interact with more other people anywhere on the planet than ever before.”
3. Work Flow Software
This force “enabled more people in more places to design, display, manage, and collaborate on business data previously handled manually,” resulting in more work to be able to flow “between companies and continents faster than ever.”
4. Uploading (open online collaboration and communities)
This force gave “newfound power [to] individuals and communities to send up, out, and around their own products and ideas, often for free, rather than just passively downloading them from commercial enterprises or traditional hierarchies,” thereby “reshaping the flow of creativity, innovation, political mobilization, and information gathering and dissemination.”
5. Outsourcing
This force meant “taking some specific, but limited, function that your company is doing in-house… and having another company perform that exact same function for you and then reintegrating their work back into your overall operation.”
6. Offshoring
This force meant being able to manufacture “the very same product in the very same way, only with cheaper labor, lower taxes, subsidized energy, and lower health-care costs” in another country, “then integrating it into [your] global supply chains.”
7. Supply-Chaining
This force allowed “[horizontal collaboration]—among suppliers, retailers, and
These are the ten factors describing how the world is becoming “flat” or globally interconnected, thereby allowing businesses all over the world to compete on a more equal playing field.
1. The New Age of Creativity (the fall of the Berlin Wall)
This event “tipped the balance of power across the world toward those advocating democratic, consensual, free-market-oriented governance, and away from those advocating authoritarian rule with centrally planned economies.”
2. The New Age of Connectivity (the rise of the Web)
This event “enabled more people to communicate and interact with more other people anywhere on the planet than ever before.”
3. Work Flow Software
This force “enabled more people in more places to design, display, manage, and collaborate on business data previously handled manually,” resulting in more work to be able to flow “between companies and continents faster than ever.”
4. Uploading (open online collaboration and communities)
This force gave “newfound power [to] individuals and communities to send up, out, and around their own products and ideas, often for free, rather than just passively downloading them from commercial enterprises or traditional hierarchies,” thereby “reshaping the flow of creativity, innovation, political mobilization, and information gathering and dissemination.”
5. Outsourcing
This force meant “taking some specific, but limited, function that your company is doing in-house… and having another company perform that exact same function for you and then reintegrating their work back into your overall operation.”
6. Offshoring
This force meant being able to manufacture “the very same product in the very same way, only with cheaper labor, lower taxes, subsidized energy, and lower health-care costs” in another country, “then integrating it into [your] global supply chains.”
7. Supply-Chaining
This force allowed “[horizontal collaboration]—among suppliers, retailers, and