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In the book "The World is Flat Wholesale Isaiah Thomas Jersey , A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century", the author and celebrated New York Times Editorialist, Thomas Friedman, talks about "the ten forces that flattened the world" and revolutionized the way we do business in the past 15 years. What he means is the forces that are "levelling the playing field" and allowing the entire world to work together Wholesale Mo Williams Jersey , and compete against one another in ways never before imaginable.

Briefly, they are as follows:

1) The Collapse of the Berlin Wall (19891109) - this opened up east and west and allowed two cultures to meet.

2) Netscape's IPO (19950809) - this started the boom which led to a huge amount of companies getting funds for crazy projects, laying tons of fiberoptic cable around the world, and basically laying the foundation for extremely cheap broadband connections with the world.

3) Work Flow Software - people were now able to send files back and forth to each other via email Wholesale Deron Williams Jersey , work on these files on their own computers and in effect, collaborate over long distances.

4) Open-Sourcing - this movement led to affordable, cheap and free software that could be used on many different platforms over the internet, developing servers for businesses to run intranets and communicate in a more efficient way.

5) Outsourcing - this movement is the result of companies trying to "cut the fat" by finding cheaper places to get the job done "out-of-house". Since the internet and broadband was available cheaply Wholesale Andrew Bogut Jersey , companies could outsource overseas to cheaper labour pools, have the finished product re-imported and finished for the market.

6) Offshoring - by taking entire factories to countries where the labour was cheap and the number of workers was large, it was possible to achieve "economies of scale" and dramatically decrease costs of production.

7) Supply-Chaining - it became possible to develop systems where all of the components for your product were sourced from all over the world where one could get the best product at the cheapest price. Look at Dell Computers as a perfect example.

8) Insourcing - logistics was born and transport companies redesigned themselves to look after entire parts of companies that had some relation to moving product from A to B. This could be inventory, repairs of computers Wholesale Derrick Williams Jersey , and more.

9) In-Forming - it is now possible to research anything on the internet and learn about anything in a far more detailed manner than ever before thanks to the massive amount of data in storage on the systems linked to the world.

10) Steroids: Digital, Mobile, Personal, Virtual - these extra little tools acted as a catalyst to make the other nine flatteners extra powerful. Now people were able to communicate freely any time Wholesale Kyrie Irving Jersey , any place and on a huge variety of portable machinery. Free Internet Telephony (Skype) is one example.

Now I will talk about the Japanese optical industry and how these flatteners are changing the face of the way business is done in this industry.

The most important flatteners affecting the optical industry today

The largest market for eyeglasses is the U.S. and from an optical industry perspective (perhaps others as well), America seems only to want "cheaper" products. This desire for "price down" (at the expense of quality) has driven a large amount of business to China. The manufacturers in China produce acceptable quality at a dramatically reduced price compared to the rest of the world. Japan had the competitive advantage of being able to work titanium and titanium alloy materials which are in high demand for eyeglasses in the world. Due to the "no nickel" policy in Europe a lot of the "standard metals" are being phased out and titanium, being considered "nickel-free" has become a hot commodity.

Japanese manufacturing is very high quality (the rest of the world cannot attain the quality of the manufacturers here for eyeglasses), but also very expensive because in this little industry Wholesale LeBron James Jersey , we do not use production-line manufacturing. Although everyone would prefer the Japanese quality, the price point has pushed them away to China.

Many Japanese manufacturers went bankrupt and those that survived either did so because they moved to niche manufacturing for a smaller market, or they OUTSOURCED their manufacturing to companies in China. Outsourcing to China for the Japanese market has been very difficult because, even though Friedman talks about "high quality manufacturing in China" Cheap Jae Crowder Jersey , I have to disagree for the optical industry. The poor quality that comes out of Chinese factories, and the way business is conducted is extremely frustrating to companies outsourcing their orders to companies there.

In order to overcome this, the companies that could afford to do so have started OFFSHORING their business by either building their own factories in China and managing themselves, or working with an existing Chinese manufacturer but sending Japanese people over to manage the production of their product.

Outsourcing is not a new co


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