Summary: The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman

sufficient leadership, imagination and flexibility to adapt quickly enough to stay up with the speed of changes as they occur.

UPS, FedEx and other package delivery firms help small companies grow by providing them with world-class logistics.

suppliers they need to make a replacement item to ship to Wal-Mart to keep the store stocked. Wal-Mart’s supply chain then handles all the logistics of getting that item shipped, distributed and back on the shelf in time to be available when the next customer wants to buy one.

China’s people are very entrepreneurial. They aspire to move from being contract manufacturers to doing more of the higher added-value tasks like technology development and new technology creation.

many x-rays taken in American hospitals are now analyzed by Indian doctors who prepare reports which are then e-mailed back to their American counterpart

The Apache software for Web servers and the Linux operating system software have been developed this way and still continue to evolve through the efforts of unpaid volunteers.

Products in all industries are becoming increasingly commoditized to take advantage of labor and services provided by emerging economies like China and India.