The World is Flat
Posted : April 21, 2005 at 11:12 pm [IST]
Some information is surprising. So was the one that Thomas L. Friedman, foreign affairs columnist for ‘The NewYork Times’ and author of the new book-‘The World is Flat‘ was a caddy for a golfer at his early age. It has a left an impression on his life. Friedman today is one of the most influential American Newspaper columnists and is slowly getting into the shoes to become ‘globalization guru’. Let me confess I hate this word ‘guru’. In 1999, Friedman had published his book ” The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization”.
Indian express regularly publishes his columns. Both my sons -Anand as well as Rajesh are the fans of Friedman. He writes in simple manner that one can understand easily, He cites examples that touch you. His narration is just inspiring. Anand wanted to outright buy ‘The World is Flat’. But one day he found the book at Borders and gave me to read and to give him my opinion before he purchases. I had just finished reading the review of the book in the current Economist that read-” Anyone tempted to buy ” The World is Flat” should hold back, and purchase instead Mr. Jagdish Bhagwati’s ‘ In Favor of Globalization’ or Martin Wolf’s “Why Globalization Works”
Naturally, once Friedman was named with Jagdish Bhagwati who, as I know, was a prospective candidate for Nobel Prize, it compelled me to read the book. I started reading it. I was thrilled. I was reading something really new and different. It talked in great way about Indian outsourcing miracle and IT leaders- Nandan Nilekeni of Infosys and Vivek Paul of Wipro. I was amazed for a different reason too. He has credited Vivek Paul talking of an incident that happened with a fleet of Ambassador cars. The book presents a unique picture of Indian entrepreneurs in the knowledge industry. This is one sector where India can excel and remain world leader, if it does not get complacent and takes care of the risk factors. This is the sector that can multiply the number of the consuming middle class fast and bring prosperity to the nation even without waiting for the horrendous problems of infrastructures getting sorted out.
I think the book will go a long way to enhance the image of Indian economy, just as ‘China Inc.’ and ‘The Chinese Century’ have done for China. Friedman is seeing all the barriers getting demolished, the distances dying, and cooperative efforts for greater causes getting possible through technological breakthroughs and innovations.
Several technological and political forces have converged, and produced a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration without regard to geography or distance - or soon, even language.
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Globalization Level 3.0 that appeared around 2000 and the world has just become tiny. Friedman is so much optimistic in his approach that it is almost contagious for all positive thinking persons. Here are Friedman’s 10 Great Levelers:
01. Fall of the Berlin wall.
The event of November 9, 1989, tilted the worldwide balance of power toward democracies and free market.02. Netscape IPO
The August 1995, offering sparked massive investment in fiber-optic cables.03. Workflow software
The rise of apps from PayPal to VPNs enabled faster, closer coordination among far-flung employees.04. Open-sourcing
Self-organizing communities, a la Linux, launched a collaborative revolution.05. Out sourcing
Migrating business functions to India saved money and a third world economy.06. Off shoring
Contract manufacturing elevated China to economic prominence.07. Supply-chaining
Robust networks of suppliers, retailers, and customers increased business efficiency See Wal-Mart.08. In-sourcing
Logistics giants took control of customer supply chain, helping mom-and-pop shops go global- See UPS and FedEx.09 In-forming
Power searching allowed every one to use the Internet as ‘ a personal supply chain of knowledge’. See Goggle.10. Wireless
Like ’steroids’, wireless technologies pumped up collaboration, making it mobile and personal.
- Indra
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