My first post! Like the title of my blog already says: i'm just gonna write about what's on my mind. Plain and simple.
And today I was struck by a quote in the book "The world is flat" by Thomas L. Friedman. In a chapter about insourcing Friedman quotes the former CEO of Wal-Mart, David Glass: "One of my concerns is that with the manufacturing out of the country, one day we'll all be selling hamburgers to each other." And although I'm not living in the US, I share his concern. All western societies are moving more and more towards a service oriented society. We hardly make anything. All of that is moved to the Far East or other low-wage countries.
"It's only the simple stuff that is moved to those countries." Is a phrase that is heard often. And for the moment that may be true. But will it be like that in 20 years? I don't think so. Thousands of ambitious students are graduating from technical universities in China and India every year. They will not want to work at an assembly line and they won't need to. Why would international companies want to keep their development centra in expensive western countries if they can get the same or more for less in China or India? More qualified people are available which are probably more ambitiuos and oh yeah the products are manufactured there anyway, so that makes it even simpler.
Our government on the other hand does not seem to share this concern. They think having an "innovation platform" will solve it all. "We need to invest in the "information economy"", they say (in fact I don't know a better translation for the dutch "Kenniseconomie"). I agree, but we also need to make things, making things is adding value, and adding value is making money. Not all 16 or 17 million dutch people can work for banks (especially now ;-) ). For the moment producing in the Far East may be a good choice, for the multinational company it may be a good choice anyway, but to keep our society the way it is we will have to start making things ourselves again.
Is there nothing we can do? Of course there is. In fact it's nothing else than normal competition: just try to do better than your oppononents. And just like in sports, there are 3 things you need to defeat your opponent:
First of all: good players. Therefore I hope we can make young students more enthousiastic for technical studies. Economy is fine, but if there is no industry, we won't need any accountants.
Secondly: good tactics and good equipment. Sportsmen are always looking for the competitive advantage (no not dope). Examples I'm talking about are the fosbury flop (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosbury_Flop) and the clap skate (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klapschaats). Companies are the same they have to keep innovating or others will do it for them. The moment a company stops innovating it's essentially signing it's own death sentence. I can't think of a better example than the American automotive industry. (Watching the documentary "Who killed the electric car" on Google Video makes it even more painful.)
And last, but definitely not least: motivated players that are prepared to go the extra mile. In sports, the most motivated team will often win even if the opponent has better players or equipment. I'm convinced, economy is just like that. And thrust me our competitors are motivated.
