As Time Goes on and the World Changes, Growth and Revolutions.

James Borland

EM 691 Assignment 1

As time goes on and the world changes, growth and revolutions will occur that will shape the landscape of the world.  The recent development of technology in the modern age has drastically changed the world in many ways including communication, collaboration, competition, and in many other ways. With this recent change in technology there has been a drastic change in how businesses operate, function, and compete with their business environments.  Due to this shift, it enables new types of business that helps to provide support for many smaller companies which is why Thomas Friedman makes the claim “The World is Flat” in his writing and in this lecture.  His reasoning is because with support from technology, the global economic playing field is being leveled which allows for smaller competitors to compete around the world and can utilize assets and services worldwide.  This change is all due to the changes in technology and how it has allowed for people to work together without worry as much about distance as well as helping people connect with those who are able to collaborate and work with one another to help mutually benefit one another.  This technology boost, and its collaborative benefits that are ties to it, are part of the globalization change that has changed business from local and national trade to an international affair that operates on an unavoidable global scale.  This recent change has allowed competitors like Russia, China, India, and any small business worldwide.  These competitors are able to compete using these new technologies found in the globalization movement and can use new business techniques like outsourcing, offshoring, open sourcing, utilizing information supply chain, and insourcing to compete on a global scale.  With these factors in mind we can understand how one can interoperate the term “The World is Flat” in such a context as though globalization and technology the competitive field has been leveled so that anyone can compete in the market on a more equal scale.

        The contribution of the written work as well as the lecture was stated by the author himself as it was written to inform others and the next generation about this change in hopes of preparing them for the new business landscape that has developed and even referred to his daughter in this context.  In addition, there are additional audiences that he is aiming for as it is implied that through this work Friedman is issuing both a warning and an opportunity.  It is a warning for the established companies and other successful businesses that other people globally are now able to compete due to these new conditions and that they too will need to adapt or compete against these changes and new competitors.  In addition, it shows there is a new opportunity for small business and those who want to enter the market as the new shift towards globalization has created an opportunity for them that they may have not seen or known about.  The paper is valuable as well because, while some business owners and entrepreneurs knew about this change already, many have not yet realized how globalization has affect the local and global markets and this paper helps to educate, enlighten, document, and explore how globalization though technology has created an opportunity for other, smaller businesses to compete with the larger businesses on a global scale.