Thomas Friedman is a three time Pulitzer Prize winner and a columnist for the New York Times. He writes two weekly columns which usually consist of topics such as globalization and environmental issues. He wrote a book called The World is Flat. Thus meaning, whatever can be done will be done, there’s only one question for you, will it be done by you or for you.

The World is Flat talks about the in-sourcing and outsourcing of the world as a flattener. Tom figured out that the world is flat because of what he calls flatteners.  He uses an example in his book for in-sourcing as what the company UPS does. They don’t just deliver packages; they make your company a whole different participle. They get right up to the top notch of management and they take over your entire logistics operations. It becomes a huge flattener for us because it requires a lot of different standards. So in an example of what is done is say at Nike when you are online ordering what you want for sneakers there isn’t a Nike rep on the other side taking your order, it is a UPS person. They are controlling the in-sourcing of companies worldwide, which is flattening the world in Toms’ eyes.  When looking at outsourcing, it has become a major trend over the past couple of decades worldwide. Outsourcing is the practice of sending certain jobs or certain functions of a job to an outside source or company whereas instead you could be doing them in-house or doing yourself.  Many companies worldwide are outsourcing because it makes the process easier for their own individual company.  If companies around the world did not outsource then some of these industries may not have the opportunity to be part of the society in a way that they are now.  When these companies that just make one product for another company is told to stop because that company is now going to do it themselves, they will all lose out on everything they have.

I believe that Outsourcing and in-sourcing is the biggest flattener that Thomas Friedman talks about in his book because if you don’t use these tools then you are going to be the one that is taken advantage of.  Like I stated before when he means the world is flat he really means that “whatever can be done, will be done. There’s only one question will it be done by you or for you”