“Honey, I think the world is flat". This is the lovely say of Thomas Friedman to his wife in the best selling book in 2005 “The World Is Flat". No need to explain more to push readers to believe that the idea is true which is considered to be against the familiar concept “The Earth is round", the short and honest say of Thomas was still very persuasive that made me happily read through the book in a very short time.



Among “The ten forces that flattened the world" such as work flow software, supply chaining, offshoring, in-forming, etc, I was especially impressed by outsourcing. Maybe it will be superfluous if I give you the definition of or any explanation about outsourcing, I just write down what Nandan Nilekani, CEO of the well-known Infosys Technology Limited in India, said in the book, “Outsourcing is just one dimension of a much more fundamental thing happening today in the world". An interesting example of this popular trend is an Indian-owned “24/7 Customer" call center in Bangalore, India where “some are known as ‘outbound’ operators, selling everything from credit cards to phone minutes. Others deal with ‘inbound’ calls – everything from tracing lost luggage for U.S. and European airline passengers to solving computer problems for confused American consumers" and “The calls are transferred by satellite and undersea fiber-optic cable". That is an amazingly intelligent idea to utilize the workforce in the era when all people believe “Customer is God". Due to the time difference, an Indian operator in Bangalore can serve an American or a British customer when his American partner in New York is in the mist of her dreams.

It sounds simple but actually not easy. To work in a big company like “24/7 Customer’ with much higher wages than the average income per month of almost people in India, all the operators have to pass through a lot of difficulties. Not mentioning the challenges during the working time when confronting a hard-nose consumer or facing a silly phone call, those operators need to learn how to speak English with American or British accent before taking the job. That’s not easy with many Indians who are stuck in their strong-own-way-in-speaking-English pride. You may think it is somehow racist but job is job, efficiency is efficiency and the fact is an American consumer angered by losing something precious can very easily distrust an operator with an unfamiliar accent, especially when she finds out the operator is sitting in India.

So the operators have to take “pronunciation classes" and this is what they look like. “Remember the first day I told you that the Americans flap the ‘tuh’ sound? You know, it sounds like an almost ‘duh’ sound – not crisp and clear like British", said the mistress to her students. “So I’m just going to read it out for you once, and then we’ll read it together. All right? ‘Thirty little turtles in a bottle of bottled water. A bottle of bottled water held thirty little turtles. It didn’t matter that each turtle had to rattle a metal ladle in order to get a little bit of noodles".

I brought the book and the story to one of my close friends who is working in E-commerce field and unsurprisingly she was really interested. But what was even more unexpected was when she came to my office one week after that with a big smile, “Thank you, Chris. You opened my eyes!" It turned out that my friend’s online software company with the main product Voice Changer Software can help people change voice and fix some small mistakes in pronunciation.

In fact, after reading through the book, a new idea popped up in her mind and she immediately sent a letter to all Voice Changer customers asking if the software can really help with pronunciation. Some customers from Singapore, Hongkong and India replied that they did use Voice Changer Software for making their accent more similar to American to create voice-overs for a Powerpoint presentation at schools or sales reports and product introductions at a trade fair. An amazing benefit from her product that she had never known and expected. And now she is of course planning for a Marketing strategy to utilize this new benefit.

So, Thomas! If you knew this software, would you have included it in the factors that flatten the world?

About the author:

Chris Martin is an author with a profound interest in Online education, E-commerce and new Online trends in the world. He has a number of writings about Online games, Online English speaking club, Online chat, etc.

Contact him at huutrong@audio4fun.com