When the author of 'The World is Flat' speaks, listen.
Thomas L. Friedman offers some colorful thoughts drawing from the foundation of his best-selling book:"Today, just about everything is becoming a commodity, except imagination, except the ability to spark new ideas.
If I just have the spark of an idea now, I can get a designer in Taiwan to design it. I can get a factory in China to produce a prototype. I can get a factory in Vietnam to mass manufacture it.
I can use Amazon.com to handle fulfillment. I can use freelancer.com to find someone to do my logo and manage my backroom. And I can do all this at incredibly low prices.
'America's Real Dream Team' - New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman
Build a boat
Very little in business today won't be commoditized. This concept certainly contributed to my own business strategy. Ideas and creations are, and will continue to be, the difference-maker for businesses of all size.
Entrepreneurs and small biz startups already have a mountain to climb in ramping up and gaining momentum. Eight out of ten startups fail within the first five years of launch. Of the few that don't fail, most remain afloat and eventually figure out a way to innovate out of sheer desperation. Don't wait to get to that point.
Today's global competiton is fierce and enabled by teams of infrastructure assembled to lower costs and deliver efficiencies. I hear the same story of challenges like these that so many people are facing on a daily basis in my consulting work.
The world is continuing to flatten. Build your business boat with the ability to steer into new waters via unique offerings. We're all fishing from the same ocean but there are still untapped waters to navigate to.
Figure out how you can be a big fish in a small pond, to niche your company. How you accomplish this has more to do with packaging value-added services by responding to media changes and the attention economy than ever before.
What are your thoughts?