Where is the Puck?

We all know how OUTSOURCING has changed the business world and helped create virtual companies and virtual businesses. At the same time, however, completely opposite trend is emerging, too. According to Thomas Friedman (best selling book: “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century” ) “Insourcing” is one of the top ten trends, or “flatteners”, that have leveled the global playing field. Insourcing is when company’s employees EXTEND their services – beyond their core business -on behalf of another company. For example, UPS repairs Toshiba computers on behalf of Toshiba. The work is done at the UPS hub, by UPS employees.

Friedman’s top ten trends or “world flatteners” are:

* Collapse of Berlin Wall-11/9 – the starting point for leveling the global playing field
* Netscape: Netscape and the Web broadened the audience for the Internet
* Workflow software: The ability of machines to talk to other machines with no humans involved.
* Open sourcing (open source software, blogs, and Wikipedia)
* Outsourcing
* Inscourcing
* Offshoring
* Supply chaining
* In-forming: the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people
* “The Steroids”: Personal digital equipment like mobile phones, iPods, personal digital assistants, instant messaging, and voice over IP or VOIP