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| Competing in a Flat World: Building Enterprises for a Borderless World | 
 enlarge | Authors: Victor K. Fung, William K. Fung, Yoram (jerry) Wind
Publisher: Wharton School Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $27.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 40964
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.1
ISBN: 0132332906
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.500285
EAN: 9780132332903
ASIN: 0132332906
Publication Date: September 22, 2007
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Product Description
This is the eBook version of the printed book. In the "flat world," everything changes...above all, what it takes to run a winning company. Success is less about what the company can do itself and more about what it can connect to. Find out how it's done, from the company that pioneered "flat world" success, Li & Fung, which produces more than $8 billion in garments and other goods for the world's top brands and retailers -- without owning a single factory. Victor and William Fung and Jerry Wind, author of the best-selling The Power of Impossible Thinking, reveal how they've replaced "old-fashioned" infrastructure and huge employee bases with a fluid, ever-changing network that can design, manufacture, and deliver almost anything, anywhere. The key to success in this world is a set of principles for "network orchestration," described for the first time in this book. They examine how these principles can be applied in manufacturing, services and other industries. They show how to build and orchestrate your own world-class global network. Compete "network vs. network" and win! Create a "big-small" company that combines scale and agility. Forge loose-tight relationships with suppliers. Balance control with empowerment, stability with renewal. Manage the "bumps" in the flat world -- from politics to terrorism.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Value Stood on its Ear November 14, 2007
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
The world is changing and, I guess, I am just slow to adapt.
Value is one of those concepts. It took me a while to accept the concept of Intellectual Property as having value as an asset. But, once I did, I became an ardent proponent.
Then along comes this book. It stands my concept of value on their ear. Victor K. Fung, William K. Fung and Yoram (Jerry) Wind posit that value is created not by the collection of traditional assets - factories, patents, brands, etc. - but rather by orchestrating resources and networks you do not control. Success is no longer defined by what an organization can do for itself. Rather, by the resources to which it can connect, its dexterity in doing so and the trust it leaves in the wake.
The key to success in this new "flat" world, they say, is the ability to:
1.Design and manage networks.
2.Control through enablement.
3.Create value through integration.
Thus, managers must learn to:
1.Compete "network to network."
2.Create networks balance "big company" economies of scale with "small company" quickness.
3.Forge loose-tight relationships with suppliers.
4.Balance control with enablement.
5.Balance stability with renewal.
6.Manage outside variables such as politics and terrorism.
This is a thought-provoking book that challenges every concept I held on what a business is and how it should be run. If you are competing in the world, each chapter will challenge your thinking and your plans.
 The idea is nice, but what happens when your musicians form a competing orchestra? July 26, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Yes, the global communications and logistics systems does make it easier and even necessary to involve the globe in your manufacturing, marketing, and distribution systems. The idea of the "Flat World" is now in everyone's vocabulary, but I think it is a bit overdone. Just because information CAN be communicated anywhere, made in more places than ever before, and shipped from and to almost anywhere, does not mean that anywhere is equivalent everywhere.
Still, I think this book is interesting in the way they describe using your expertise to market and build just what the customer wants using global infrastructure by orchestrating the resources of a number of firms rather than building your own infrastructure and having to market to utilize your capacity rather than focusing on customer needs and desires.
We are seeing the problem with this theory, though. As American and European manufacturers moved their plants to other parts of the world, these places predictably learned. They are now either buying up Western brands or creating their own and bringing them to market in the West. Oops. They didn't stay in their role in the back of the orchestra, did they.
So, while this idea has some merit, the old rules of manufacturing, marketing, and aggressively competing in the marketplace with every tool (weapon) available still apply. You would be smart to think through handing the keys of your kingdom over to third parties based on these concepts. Rather than merely supporting your efforts, they may decide to push you aside and move in.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
How to respond to "the most important thing happening in the world today" September 18, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Those who have read Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat no doubt recall an assertion he makes in his introduction to the second expanded version: "My use of the word `flat' does not mean equal (as in `equal incomes') and never did. It means equalizing, because flattening forces are empowering more and more individuals today to reach farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before, and that is equalizing power - and equalizing opportunity, by giving so many more people the tools and ability to connect, compete, and collaborate. In my view, this flattening of the playing field is the most important thing happening in the world today, and those that get caught up in measuring globalization purely by trade statistics - or as a purely economic phenomenon instead of one that effects everything from individual empowerment to culture to how hierarchical institutions operate - are missing the impact of this change."
Curiously, there is no reference in Friedman's book to Li & Fung, Hong Kong's largest export trading company, which has been "a flat business for a flat world" since the early 1980s. In an interview by Joan Magretta that appeared in the Harvard Business Review (September-October 1998), Group Chairman Victor Fung explains how Li & Fung reinvented itself to become and remain fast, global, and entrepreneurial. The company's new role (then and now) is to be a "network orchestrator."
In this book, Victor Fung, William Fung, and Yoram (Jerry) Wind explain how to build an enterprise for a borderless world, one that can "embrace the flat world" and understand how it works so as to take full advantage of the many new opportunities it offers. "Those that cannot adapt quickly enough to these new realities will fall behind or be bought out by those who have learned how to compete in a flat world. The opportunities are as broad as the world." They then pose the question to which their book is a rigorous and eloquent response: "How do you need to remake your organization, management, and mindset to seize these opportunities?"
The material is carefully organized and then presented within twelve chapters, followed by a Conclusion in which they ask their reader, "Are you ready to compete flat out?" Those who read, absorb, and then apply Fung, Fung, and Wind's advice will be well-prepared to answer that question in the affirmative.
Of special interest to me is what they have to say in Part III as they focus on value creation. Specifically, in Chapter 9, how to capture the "soft 3$"by looking beyond the factory:
"Markdowns are a flaw in the manufacturing process. They mean that a product has lost value because it was not the right product at the right time at the right place."
"In a flat world of unpredictable demand, avoiding markdowns, stockouts, and expensive whipsaws in the supply chain is harder and more important."
And then in Chapter 10, how to sell to the source by bridging marketing and operations:
"For companies that are sourcing from China, India, and other emerging markets, sometimes insights from emerging consumer markets come from the floors of their own factories or call centers."
"The challenge is to ride the wave of consumer market growth without getting too far ahead or behind."
"Sourcing can [also] offer insight into many different areas, including regulations and policies, risks, competition, detailed market information, and market shifts."
As I hope these brief excepts indicate, Fung, Fung, and Wind are relentless empiricists and hardcore pragmatists who identify the "what" of "flat-out competition" but devote most of their attention to explaining the "how" of achieving and then sustaining success.
Who will find this book to be of greatest value? In my opinion, they include decision-makers in organizations that are preparing to become a global network "orchestrator" or have only recently initiated efforts to become one; also, decision-makers in other organizations that are part of supply chains of one or more orchestrators. Moreover, I think this book should be required reading in undergraduate and graduate schools of business it will help the next generation of C-level executives to help their organizations to take full advantage of opportunities that, by then, are certain to have increased in terms of their nature and number as well as their potential ROI and, yes, their peril.
Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Vijay Mahajan and Kamini Banga's The 86 Percent Solution: How to Succeed in the Biggest Market Opportunity of the Next 50 Years, Kenichi Ohmae's The Next Global Stage: The Challenges and Opportunities in Our Borderless World, and C.K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits as well as Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution co-authored by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson, Dean R. Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement: Rethinking the Way We Measure And Drive Organizational Success, Richard Ogle's Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas, and Harvard Business Review on Managing the Value Chain.
How to Thrive Through a Sustainable Network Amid the Ongoing Pressures of Globalization December 27, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Victor and William Fung, group chairman and group managing director respectively of a Hong Kong-based multinational corporation specialized in sourcing, have partnered with Jerry Wind, a Wharton marketing professor and co-author of the illuminating The Power of Impossible Thinking: Transform the Business of Your Life and the Life of Your Business (2005) about strategic inflection points, to provide an exceptional how-to book focused on drilling down globalization to the level of existing businesses. The Fung brothers are authorities on the topic since their firm, Li & Fung, is one of the world's largest trading conglomerates managing the supply chain for high-volume, time-sensitive consumer goods through a network of sixty-six offices in over forty countries. Instead of investing in production facilities, the Fungs have mastered supply chain management by providing the convenience of a one-stop shop for customers through a coordinated package which runs the gamut from product design and development through raw material and factory sourcing, production planning and management, quality assurance, and export documentation to shipping consolidation.
Without the burden of unnecessary overhead, the Li & Fung business model has allowed the company to generate over $7 billion in annual revenue on an employee base of only 7,000. It is the unprecedented geographic flexibility of the firm's operations that epitomizes what Thomas Friedman talks about in his groundbreaking book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, when he elaborates on how the combination of information technology and instantaneous telecommunications has rendered the traditional need for a local labor market obsolete. Through the brothers' own example, Li & Fung has by necessity, a non-hierarchal organizational structure that allows them to respond quickly to customer needs. With this insightful book, they encourage firms to orchestrate among a variety of contracted suppliers and maximize technology and logistics to make the production process as seamless as possible.
This intricate coordination effort has been made even more complex by the escalating growth of niche markets demanding an even greater variety of products than what has been offered before. The need to service these segments concurrently has given rise to dispersed manufacturing which translates into multiple sourcing at different stages of production. The co-authors manage to explain clearly the steps that companies need to take to optimize their supply chains. Different industries have different levels of flexibility, and the scope and depth of Li & Fung's 9,000-plus network will not apply to all who read this book. Wind is particularly effective in showing how the lessons learned by the Fung brothers can apply to the non-manufacturing sector. It is not only the dynamic nature of managing the supply chain that remains pertinent no matter what industry, but also adherence to a consistent perspective on the customers' holistic needs.
The co-authors outline the three dimensions that make for a successful framework of supply chain management. The first is to balance the firm's interests with those of the network create by creating "big-small" companies that combine scale and agility. The second is the move away from traditional notions of control toward a specifically network-centric viewpoint given that the suppliers and consumers are more empowered than ever to upset the cart. The third is currently the most nebulous, the paradigm shift in the strategies and competencies necessary to succeed in a flat world. The co-authors wisely view this last dimension as a work-in-progress, as customer needs and the expectation to respond to them continue to evolve at an even faster rate. This is strongly recommended reading for the forward-looking executive.
A fascinating study founded upon real-world experience and a remarkable attention to detail October 6, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The collaborative effort of Victor K. Fung (Group Chairman of Li & Fung and Vice Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce), William K. Fung (Group Managing Director of Li & Fung and former Chair of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce), and Yoram 'Jerry' Wind (Lauder Professor and Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a lecturer on global marketing and business strategy), "Competing In A Flat World: Building Enterprises For A Borderless World" focuses on how an business can be successful access a global market for its goods and services from manufacturing to sales. The template is Li & Fung which has produced more than $8 billion in garments and other goods for nationally and internationally recognized brands -- all without owning a single factory. Reader swill learn how to successfully compete 'network vs network; how to crate a 'big-small' company combing scale and agility; how to forge 'loose-tight' relationships with suppliers; how to balance control with empowerment, stability with renewal; how to deal with such issues as politics and terrorism. A fascinating study founded upon real-world experience and a remarkable attention to detail, "Competing In A Flat World" is to be considered essential reading for anyone contemplating doing business in today's increasingly global economy.
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