The World is Flat

The World Is Flat is a an interesting book that discusses the fact that we are as a culture are becoming more dependent on our computers to survive and mostly to be competitive in our ever changing world. The first part of the book discusses how companies like IBM, HP, and Texas Instruments are moving their businesses to other countries like India where they can run their businesses cheaper through less payroll costs knowledgeable staff, and then communicate with their offices here in the States and elsewhere through the internet. The next part of the book discusses how large comapnies such as UPS an others, and how even Physicians offices, CPA's etc. are using computers and the internet to do a lot of outsourcing to other countries. The author talks about companies like McDonald's who don't take their business offices to other countries, but they cut theor payroll costs by computerizing their drive thru line so that all orders go through a call center, which is located elsewhere in the U.S. And how large companies such as Wal-Mart and especially UPS are using computers and the vast internet services for insourcing, in order to outpace and out perform their competition.

It didn't surprise me that large companies moved their offices to other countries to save labor costs because that has been happening for a while where it pertains to the manufacture of clothing, toys, etc.,but it did surprise me and I found it interesting that doctor's offices use the internet to send tests such as MRI's that are done after hours to a country like India, who have employees who read and write up a report on the MRI then download it and send it right back to the doctor who is able to get up in the morning and get the test results all while he was sleeping and with the time zone change the reader on the other side is working in the day. This also happens in the CPA's office where they may outsource thousands of tax returns to a compnay in India who prepares the returns and then electronically sends them back to the CPA firm allowing the firm to work on many clients at once.

Wal-mart was one of the pioneers of using computers to determine exactly what has been sold every hour, reorder the item and get the store replenished in a matter of days. Which can be very profitible during the holiday season.

UPS is even more amazing they are so far ahead of the game. They now have a new slogan which read: "Your World Synchronized". not only do they make sure that all packages that are shipped through their company are tracked and delivered on time bu they now run a lot smaller comapnies shipping programs. One example that I found especially interesting is how they have cut the costs for Toshiba's laptop repair service. As part Toshiba's warranty repair service, customers were told to drop off their laptop at a UPS station, UPS would send it to Toshiba who would repair the laptop, and send it back to the consumer using UPS. That was a lot of days spent in transit leaving the consumer without their computer. UPS instead now send the computer to their own repair shop where a technician repairs it and then UPS delivers the computer right back to the consumer in many less days.

This book is very interesting and got me thinking about how important it will be for us as teachers to make sure we become knowledgeable about computers ourselves so that we can teach our own students. This will help them to be more competitive in the job market instead of giving the jobs to employees in other countries. More students will own computers in the future especially students in foriegn countries, if we don't keep up with the rest of the world we are going to have fewer jobs available to our children here in the U.S. As parents we need to encourage our children to go into the engineering, computer science and other tech jobs so that we can ensure that they can become successful and marketable in the future when they are out looking for jobs.

The World Is Flat