The World Is Flat/Friedman 349-351

Rule #3 And the big shall act small…One way that big companies learn to flourish in the flat world is by learning how to act really small by enabling their customers to act really big.

350 These companies create a platform that allows individual customers to serve themselves in their own way, at their own pace, in their own time, according to their own tasts.

351 Self-Directed consumer—can act very small by enabling their customers to act very big.

Rule #4 The best companies are the best collaborators. In the flat world, more and more business will be done through collaboration within and between companies, for a very simple reasons: The next layers of value creation---are becoming so complex that no single firm or department is going to be able to master them alone.