Success in a Global Economy

GEOGRAPHY

This is not going to be about maps and globes, although, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have some. This is not only about the view of the world or the difference in the appearance of the terrain, it is more importantly about the difference in the perception of how things are according to where you are standing. It might be called the “accident of geography”. There is no doubt about the fact that most of us born in America are incredibly fortunate. Many of the folks in the rest of the world are not nearly so fortunate. They just don’t know it because they were born there and have not seen anything different. Very often the fate of the unfortunates is dependant on the wisdom and vision of their leaders to see the rest of the world with an eye toward finding out how they can make things better.

A very good example would be the small island of Singapore. In the early 1960’s the newly elected Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, set about converting the mosquito infested, 225 sq. mile, island nation into a major world economic center. It is entirely possible that the most important thing Mr. Lee contributed to the early stage of development was the recognition of the incredible accident of geography. The island coincidentally sits right on the shipping routes of the Straits of Malaca, a major shipping route through S.E. Asia. All Mr. Lee had to do was look out at all the freighters going by and figure out how to get them to put in to the natural deep-water ports and then, how to turn that discovery into value. The early Singaporeans decided the best way to get the freighters to stop at their port was to buy what they were hauling. Then it was just a matter of how to repackage the off-loaded goods, and distribute them to the region. Simple isn’t it? That’s actually about all there is to it. The toughest part is the very first step. Recognizing the value in an accident of geography is the biggest accomplishment. From where a body is standing, it is as simple as looking out at the rest of the world and figuring out what is unique about that exact spot. The very first thing that makes that spot unique is the fact that it is the only place on the whole planet that is exactly right there. The next easy and simple step is to think about how to make that fact of the matter valuable. In the case of the early Singaporeans it was the realization that they were situated in a natural hub to serve about 250 million potential customers. All they had to do was figure out what all those consumers wanted to buy and how could they go about selling it to them. The answers were relatively obvious. The consumers wanted to buy what was on the freighters or it wouldn’t have been onboard. They also wanted to buy it in quantities they could afford, usually a one or two day supply. The what was obviously much simpler than the how. That is usually the way it is. Finding out what to do once the accident of geography has been discovered is often easier than figuring out how to implement capitalizing on the discovery. The good news is that the need to secure world trade presents a lot of new opportunities.

Remember the Chinese philosophy about crisis representing opportunity? Look around at your accident of geography and then consider what are the opportunities now.

The folks in the center of the country have heard a lot about imports and exports, but it has always been something that happened in far away places like New York and Los Angeles. Even stranger sounding places like Frankfurt and New Delhi. Well guess what? The newly established security systems will provide for a shipping container to be packed in Oklahoma City, a seal and a global tracking device attached and the container sent off non-stop to those far away places. The same thing will happen from the other direction. Containers loaded, inspected, and sealed in Bangkok will be shipped directly to places like Omaha where local customs officials will remove the seal. This new process will, in many cases, eliminate the need for cargo containers to be delayed in the already overburdened traditional, coastal port, customs facilities. The containers will transfer directly off the ships to trucks and rail cars for delivery to approximately their final destination site. Now consider the new opportunities represented in this scenario. How about a business in Omaha that imports cheap, high quality components, assembles them into finished goods, packages and distributes to the domestic market? That is not really news. It is already being done. The difference is, it will suddenly become a very much faster process with a lot fewer hands handling the components. The price goes down, accessibility goes up, the logistics become easier and everybody wins. That is not a far off and distant probability, it is the new reality and will be implemented immediately. Get ready and get busy looking for the new opportunities that may well be the result of the accident of geography also coupled with the issues and challenges of the new millennium. The view that old Mr. Lee Kuan Yew looked out at what was the result of a world war, he also recognized the incredible value of their accident of geography and put about a million and a half people to working extremely hard to capitalize on it, that’s all.