Disclaimer:
Many of you know that I am a big advocate of outsourcing. Having co-founded an accounting and tax return outsourcing company, I have been known to expound on the virtues of outsourcing for small and medium sized businesses from time to time. If you are a Lou Dobb’s fan, you may want to take a sedative before you read this post.
With 2008 rapidly approaching, I think it is time for every business owner and entrepreneur to take stock of how flat their world is. By ‘flat world’ I am referring to the analogy of Thomas Freidman’s 2004 book, The World is Flat, where he likened the growing inertia of globalization to the world being “flattened”, or shrunk to the point that country borders are less and less relevant through technology and business and commerce freely flow between businesses and individuals across the world.
If you are a business owner, taking stock of how flat your world is could involve asking yourself the following questions:
-What tasks, processes and/or systems am I currently outsourcing?
-If I am not currently, am I moving in this direction quickly?
-How am I leveraging global resources to maximize my profits and boost my productivity?
-Are my competitors beating me because they are better allocating their internal resources?
Answering these questions will help you determine if you are staying in front of the globalization curve or not. If you are behind the curve, the news is good: the time is ripe to jump in.
You might be asking: “What if I am just a single entrepreneur and I don’t have anything to outsource?” My answer to this is simple: everybody has mundane and routine tasks that add little or no value that could be outsourced to free up time and make for a clearer focused business model. Look at things like: scheduling, bill payment, book keeping, order fulfillment, website maintenance, and promotional materials and so on. Just look for a few minutes and you will find an aspect of your business that will benefit from globalization.
Does flattening your world always mean that you are going to outsource to India? In a word; no. In fact, I outsource quite a few of my business processes to freelancers here in the U.S. The flattened world also means making you closer to those across the U.S.
The flatter your world is, the more adaptable you are to change and the more scalable your business is.
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