Book Analysis

Book Analysis

Introduction

The world is flat is a book authored by Thomas Friedman. In this book, the author talks about the different eras of globalization that have helped to shape the world that we live in today. The book also examines the influences of the factors that affect businesses across the globe. The book iterates that due to the growing influence of technologies in the business environment of today, governments as well as businesses must devise ways and formulate strategies that can assist them to widen their competitive moat and stay on top of the rapidly evolving trends that play a pivotal role in the globalized market.

Discussion

Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat highlights the growing threat that major markets around the world face as a result of the rampant and unprecedented pace of globalization. The book voices the fear and considers the possibility that the development of markets across the globe may very possibly be outpaced by globalization. The book is punctuated by numerous case studies all of which tend to highlight the threat posed by rampant globalization to a world that is struggling to cope up with the fast pace of this trend. Apart from this, numerous interviews have also been presented in the book while the statistical data provided emphasizes upon the importance of devising better strategies to stay ahead in the race with globalization. The World Is Flat examines America's place in the rapidly expanding global platform and, rather than simply highlighting the imminent risks and problems, presents smart solutions that would rescue America from the quagmire of globalization (Friedman, 2012; Friedman & Amazon.com, 2007).

In his book, Friedman talks about how ten major events in recent years have helped to spearhead globalization. He begins by describing the falling of the Berlin Wall in the year 1989. He singles out this event as the starting point of the recent drive towards globalization pointing out that it played a pivotal role in tipping the balance of power around the globe and helped in the establishment and promotion of democratic markets rather than those that imposed authoritarian rule. The second factor highlighted by Friedman was the advent of the internet (Friedman & Amazon.com, 2007). He highlights that the invention allowed people around the world to develop and use free workflow software. Friedman explains how, for the first time, this allowed people to collaborate with each other and work together on projects while being at opposite ends of the globe. Wikipedia and Apache were then invented and these helped significantly to promote collaboration among communities by fostering the development of web content and allowing it to be uploaded (Friedman, 2012; Friedman & Amazon.com, 2007).

Friedman identifies the invention of outsourcing practices as another major step towards globalization. He examines how the emergence of massive Asian markets like China and India encouraged the outsourcing and off-shoring of resources. Supply-chaining has also been identified as a major factor that has fostered the drive towards globalization. Friedman compares the supply chain mechanism of today with that ...