What Does It Take to Compete in a Flat World?

When Thomas Friedman wrote his popular book The World Is Flat one of its central arguments was that geography might soon become history. The proliferation of information technology and telecommunications networks has integrated the world in ways that were unimaginable in the past -- and this has transformed how companies produce and distribute products and services. One result of this transformation is the rise of networks of companies that are bound together through IT and logistics. How can firms strive for and gain competitive advantage in such an environment? Victor and William Fung group chairman and managing director of Hong Kong-based Li & Fung and Yoram (Jerry) Wind a professor of marketing at Wharton deal with this issue in their new book Competing in a Flat World: Building Enterprises for a Borderless World. They recently spoke with Knowledge at Wharton.