The next Three Flatteners

After the first four flattener's here comes next three in line.
5) OutSourcing :- As the dot com bubble went bust, many fibre-optic companies when into bankruptcy. Investors and Venture capitalists who had invested in these companies started to put their thinking caps on. And then they met with a second-buyer of those huge data pipelines-India. As India started venturing into the communications protocol, a new trend started to emerge in US. As the economy had tanked and costs had to be cut, the companies started asking " Hey who are those guys that will get this work done at a cheaper rate?" And thus started Outsourcing. It helped flatten the world in a profuse sense as it cut down costs and helped achieve greater efficiency of work by integrating a cross-spectrum of individuals.
6) Offshoring:- Now the basic difference between OutSourcing and Offshoring is that the former is involved in moving only the backroom work while the later is involved in moving all the operations. Now here we take China in perspective. Due to cheap labor and subdued manufacturing costs, China has always attracted companies on a value-proposition. The Chinese when opened the gates, the people in US thought it has an interesting venture because they finally foundt the place where they could move their whole operations and get the most out of it at a very very low cost. This is one world flattener that doesnt cease to amaze me because, its not only Manufacturing but the Chinese have started grappling the other sectors also.
7) Supply-Chainining:- This actually terms with seamlessely integrating the process to deliver the products at the customer doorsteps to create value. Thomas gives us the example of Wal-mart and how it has clipped costs by sourcing goods from the manufacturers directly.How it has efficiently planned the sourcing chain and practised the just-in-time delivery to cut down inventory costs. It doesnt matter in which part of the world the product is manufactured, in the supply chain its the data that flows through is consolidated at one end and converted in information. Analysis of the customer buying patterns is done and likewise product is shipped with a reduced delivery time. Amazing! Though I feel Tom has gone a little Pro-Walmart, but still it really epitomises the flattening of the world.
Stay tuned, U will be back right after a short break. :-)