Want a book to wow you? Go read Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat.”
Friedman’s point is that today you can go anywhere and reach anyone, anytime. You are as likely to run into the American experience in China, as you are the Chinese experience in America. Everything seems portable. You can stash a thousand songs on a tiny iPod. In a flash, you can shift thousands of jobs to Bangalore – India’s Silicon Valley. That includes filling out IRS 1040s.
“In 2003, some 25,000 U.S. tax returns were done in India,” Friedman writes. “In 2004, the number was 100,000. In 2005, it is expected to be 400,000.”
A quarter-million call center staffers in India dial numbers all over the world. In America, Friedman says these “jobs are low-wage, low-prestige. In India they become high-wage, high-prestige.” These young people speak English so well you’d never know they’re calling from Bombay, not Boise. Do they stick with birth names like Indira or Ravi? They’re likely to choose Americanized phone monikers like Cindy or Ray.
Is the new brain trust in the world economy staying put abroad? Not when it comes to education. Students from places like India, China and Russia account for an ever-increasing share of learners in prestigious universities.
“Yale’s total international student contingent went from 836 in the fall of 1985 to 1,775 in the fall of 2003,” Friedman said.
A fellow Minnesotan, Tom points out that anything you digitize, you can mobilize elsewhere. Outsource to anywhere on planet Earth. CAT scans on patients in the United States are increasingly being read and analyzed by experts in the Asian subcontinent. In New York, a financial analyst costs about $80,000. In India, the going rate for comparable talent is $15,000! In profession after profession, big chunks of the workday are being e-mailed abroad.
The United States isn’t the only country feeling the “flatness” pinch. In a typical month, Beijing adds 30,000 new cars to its roadways. A growing number of these cars are prestige autos. Daimler-Chrysler is a telling example of how the road is turning. Mercedes-Benz may be the king of German autos, but more and more Mercedes are being made in China. This past September, Mercedes announced it was axing 8,500 of its German workers. And driving trends will take a dragon-sized bite out of oil supplies. In just seven years, China is expected to double its oil imports to 14 million barrels a day.
How can you put Tom Friedman’s revelations to work?
“There is no future in vanilla for most companies in a flat world,” he believes. There is certainly no future for companies in high-wage-base markets. Beware: What are you offering today that may seem like chocolate supreme but will be as dull as yesterday’s mashed potatoes in just a year?
Plenty of manufacturing and service jobs will still be done in the United States – but they will be done in centralized regions. One positive side effect of this global explosion is a phenomenon called “in-sourcing.”
Friedman points out that firms like UPS don’t just ship certain warranted laptops for repairs. UPS actually does the repairs in its own specialized workshop. That’s made many companies actually relocate to these new hubs such as the UPS center in Louisville. If you are committed to operating in the United States, you better know where those hubs are.
“When Lou Gerstner came in, (as CEO of IBM), one of the first things he did was replace the notion of lifetime employment with the notion of lifetime employability.”
Tom sees the powerful wisdom here: So much time is wasted fighting to keep outmoded jobs. What employers and employees need to focus on is how to justify the work being done. How can it be constantly upgraded? How can employee skills be honed so that they remain at the cutting edge of the global market?
Here’s the guidance Tom Friedman gives his daughters: “Girls, when I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ‘Tom, finish your dinner – people in China and India are starving.’ My advice to you is: Girls, finish your homework – people in China and India are starving for your jobs.”
Mackay’s Moral: If your map is outdated, it’s as easy to fall off a flat world as a round one.
Harvey Mackay is author of The New York Times best seller “Pushing the Envelope.” He can be reached through his Web site: www.mackay.com; or Mackay Envelope Corp., 2100 Elm St., Minneapolis, MN 55414.
