The World is Flat, describes how author Thomas L. Friedman views the flatness in dimensions of the world due to world events, changes in business operations and technological advances. These are tools in the business world that are tested everyday and there were few points that Friedman mentioned, which caught my attention while reading his book. For example, the supply chain is a great strategy, and the company that seems to run it, is the world famous Wal-mart. According to Friedman on page 129, "Supply chaining is a method of collaborating horizontally among suppliers, retailers, and customers to create value". Wal-mart sets standards for other companies to follow. For being the heavyweight champ of the business world, there isn't a contender worthy enough to take over Wal-mart and add changes to existing strategies. For every business text book that I have used, Wal-mart was always mentioned and for this, their strategies and tactics have made them the biggest company in the world.
With big business, the best tactic is to cut the cost for you as much as possible. This will give you a higher profit, and Wal-mart does this by having all their products shipped to their own warehouses and then delivered by their own trucks to the Wal-mart stores. This allows them to first, buy a massive amount of merchandise from a manufacturer without having them ship it to all the different Wal-mart's. This would be a costly result. The second, is when a product is bought, Wal-mart's computer system marks off what is bought and the manufacturer knows how much they have to ship. This results in having key internal strength by having this information on hand in their data base. This isn't the only supply chain, but it is the best so far and the best advantage about supply ...