Mariella B.

Angob

BSA 4-2

The World is Flat

(Reaction Paper)

The book “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman talks about how

globalization has affected the economy of business in the world. He

emphasized that globalization has made the world flat in terms of commerce,

wherein the competitors are on the same level and has equal opportunity to

make advancement. As the globalization continues to develop, the

communication between people in the industry becomes fluent making them

easier to work together or be more competitive against each other. This

indicates that the economy must be adaptive of the changes and

improvements necessary for the development. He discussed the three phases

of globalization. The first phase was from 1492-1800 wherein the use of

manpower and horsepower has made the industry more leveled. The second

phase was from 1800-2000 where technologies started to become dominant

and companies are becoming more competitive. The third phase of

globalization is what we have in the present time. In this era, individuals are

the driving force of the globalization and technology is now in more advanced

level.

Friedman also mentioned the 10 events that contributed to the flattening of

the world which he termed as “flatteners”. The first flattener was the fall of the

Berlin wall which happened at the end of the Cold War that broke down the

fence between people allowing them to openly connect again with the world.
The second flattener was the emerged of Netscape which was the first internet

browser accessible for the public. The third is the workflow software which

enabled computers to be connected over the internet so that people can easily

interact with each other from any part of the world. The fourth flattener was

when uploading has been introduced which allowed the people to share some

contents to the public. The fifth flattener is the outsourcing in which companies

let the outside parties to perform some work for them. The sixth flattener is the

offshoring wherein companies transfered some departments to other places

that offers a lower cost. The seventh flattener is supply-chaining wherein the

creation and sale of a product has connected the individuals, organizations

and resources through technology. The eight flattener is insourcing wherein

companies used their employees inside the organization to accomplish some

task. The ninth flattener is informing in which search engines allowed people to

easily find informations they need. The last flattener he mentioned is the

steroids. He termed it “steroids” because according to him new technologies

has supplemented the work of other flatteners.

What I realized from this book is that change is really inevitable. These

changes for the improvement opens doors for the people to get easily

connected with each other. World being flat means that globalization makes a

way for the individuals to cope up with the improving economy by leveling the

competitive field of business in the world.