The Global Individual

During my last week trip to Karnataka; I could manage to get good time during traveling to get my hands on book I was reading “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. I finished reading it. I really recommend this book to have a new outlook to our future. The book takes on the issue of Globalization.

Couple of things strike me are:

• The Globalization process started with Countries going global and started to collaborate with various other countries around glob. The next one was to Companies going Global. This, basically results in to, companies started to think globally and having their strategies accordingly. No company could think and plan in isolation. If done so, survival is not assured. Opening up call centers or back office operations in India (or other countries) is not profit making or money saving, it is required to survive!! Getting goods manufactured in China is not for having cheaper production but it is to survive. The next and the most recent one is Individual going global. All individual will have to think globally. Their job or work can be replaced not only by someone in their neighborhood, but someone in some other country thousands of miles away. Let me talk about an example, job of a person in customer support or call center in US or UK can be replaced by someone in India, China etc. I must stress, it is not question of a low end job being replaced. Low end job of Taxi Driver or Garbage Collector can not be replaced bye a person in another country. So, individual will have to think globally. Individual will have to find work or job where they can do the best, not only within their country but globally, or, they will have to find something, which can not be replaced. An individual will have to really think globally. This takes me to another aspect.
• How should we prepare ourselves to be ready for this globalization? Well, We All must “Learn – How to Learn”. This is very important for every individual for developing adaptability to change. To give you an example, photographic film developer may now much avenues open, since uses of digital camera become more popular. So, the person must be ready to learn art of digital photography or his job is at danger!. Be ready to except change with shovels to dig opportunity and do not built wall to protect from the change. Also, parents must ensure that their kids “Learn – How to Learn”. This will only make them prepare to face challenges of the newer world.

I am strongly of the opinion that there are more risks but there are of course more opportunities in this changed and ever changing world

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