RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Worldsourcing is back in the news as Lenovo CEO William Amelio continues his aggressive global expansion of the company.
Back in August, Amelio wrote in Forbes about world sourcing and how Lenovo is embracing it as part of globalization in a flattened world.
World source or perish, he wrote.
In Tuesday’s announcement that Lenovo would build a huge plant and add 1,000 workers in Poland, company executives cited “worldsourcing” as a driving reason.
We’ve written before about Amelio’s plans to turn Lenovo into a company without a country. Over time Lenovo will be known not as a Chinese company, as it is still often called be the world’s media. It certainly isn’t known as a North Carolina/U.S. firm even though corporate headquarters are in Morrisville.
And the Poland plant is the fifth announced this year, only one of which will be in the U.S. – a distribution center in the Triad.
What exactly is worldsourcing?
It’s a strategy in which companies operate where ever the best materials, innovation, talent, logistics and infrastructure can be found, Amelio said.
Companies must also deliver quality products globally or they will suffer, and Amelio believes world sourcing will help protect consumers.
He’s certainly correct – business for many companies is now timeless and not bound by borders.
Companies like Lenovo, Red Hat, SAS and I-B-M operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year.
As Amelio said, there is only one time zone – NOW.
World sourcing means more change for workers, too.
To compete globally, workers must be better educated and more adaptive to change.
Otherwise the global business express of world sourcing will pass them by.
Like it or not, worldsourcing is here to stay.
