The World is Flat

I have just finished the famous book "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century" by Thomas Freidman. http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/worldisflat.htm
I was waiting for long time to read the tome on the best guide to Outsourcing and India in recent past and most importantly you can find "Infosys" word or reference to Infosys in every alternate page...Being an infoscion myself, that was the biggest driver to read.

There has never been such prolific writing on Outsourcing and globalization with so many references to Infosys.
By the way you can find the book in all Infosys Libraries. You will get recommendation for reading the same from most of Infosys Delivery Unit and IBU(Integrated Business Unit) heads.

I remember that I first decided to read it when my IBU's head recommended the same during his visit our development centre.

Thomas(Tom) begins the book with his Bangalore visit and discussions with Nandan Nilekani(http://www.infosys.com/about/nandan_nilekani.asp). This book is all about transition that globalization has created which is fueling the outsourcing trends, increasing penetration of new companies in developing countries and companies from developing countries into developed countries, all factors which are transforming world from round to flat putting every other employee and company face to face with each other to compete with each other.

He begins with how Indian IT companies, and BPOs, the outsourcing champions are transforming the way business is done. He goes on to establish how the trend is irreversible and enumerates number of examples how outsourcing in good for America as well as India, China, Russia and Eastern Europe. You can find the phrase "Indian, Chinese, Russians, Poles" umpteen times in 400 page book.

He substantiates his points with numerous discussions that he had with CEOs of Indian IT companies like Nandan, Jerry Rao of Mphasis, and Vivek Paul of Wipro etc... Indian academicians, Indian researches, Indian born Venture capitalists etc.. You will be surprised to find mention of so many Indians in Nonfiction book of a patriotic American.... You will be surprised why I am terming Tom as patriotic because in middle and end of book, he becomes a lecturer who teaches what Americans should do to be on the leading edge of technology curve. He vehemently castigates Americans for complacency that has set in last 10-15 years.

I was surprised not to read much on Infrastructure problems at Bangalore although he spent lot of time during his stay while he was making documentary for Discovery Channel.

Interesting portions of book include the 10 flatteners which caused Flattening of world, Praise for Indian IT industry from bottom of his heart, nice insight into Chinese Manufacturing and interesting piece of data on increasing American complacency and declining interest in society towards science and technology education.

I found an interesting story on "Inscouring" on UPS, www.ups.com a logistics giant which has mind boggling 270 planes for transporting goods and freight. The book becomes a bit boring in end when he discusses the UnFlat World in detail like Al Qaeda and America, corrupt monarchies of Arab states which have become hurdles in the biggest transformation after Industrial Revolution.

In Toto, a nice read if you are interested in Outsourcing trends, or you belong to IT Fraternity or just want to read some good stuff on story of World becoming flat.