Thursday, October 04, 2007
How Does UPS Make The World Flat?
As I was reading a few passages from Thomas L. Friedman’s book “The World Is Flat” and I don’t understand why or how the world is flat. Well maybe I do. He lists 10 reasons the world has become flat and the one I really read into was reason # 8, which is Insourcing. In short, insourcing is the opposite of outsourcing which im sure most of us are familiar with. Friedman talks about UPS and how they have synced up the world. I was amazed to learn that UPS does much more then just ship a package; they have many distributing centers with the products in them ready to go. I was under the impression that when you bought an item, that item had to be shipped to USP then to you but I was wrong. UPS has worked together with many companies to help them with there distribution of products, this helps take some of the burden of shipping products to buyers off smaller and even larger companies. If the products are already at a UPS warehouse then they can just be shipped right away. To just get an idea of how much product UPS basically controls on a daily basis, take a look at this…
On any given day, according to UPS, 2 percent of the world’s GDP can be found in UPS delivery trucks or package cars. (Friedman 173)
I get the basic idea in this passage about UPS becoming one large distributor of all sorts of products but I don’t understand how it contributed to the world being flat. Now I haven’t read the rest of the book so maybe the answer is in there but as of right now my best guess is this…these new technologies are linking the world together so much, that there is really no boundaries for anything anymore, and the world being flat means that everything is streamline.
Labels: The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman, UPS
There has been a revolution in shipping. The efficient distribution of goods is a key part of the online shopping explosion.
The ablity of UPS, FEDEX and other carriers to deliver goods quickly and cheaply makes online shopping a reality.
The competitive nature of the business has led to a high-tech tracking and control system that keeps all of these packages en route to their destination.
The same UPC barcodes that make Wal-Mart's inventory control possible allow shippers like UPS to keep track of a global network moving the goods from retailer to consumer.
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