The World Just Changed!

Fantastic blog post from Robert Scoble who is touring factories in China...

The business world you think you know just changed drastically... it doesn't work the way you were taught is works... wholesalers, retailers, etc.



Here's how products actually get to consumers today... in Scoble's words...


"

Today? A product goes from factory directly to your front door via FedEx through Liam’s supply chain. How long does that take? Four to five days. All trackable via FedEx and other methods.
What’s different today? The Chinese are now cutting out Amazon and are building Websites that you can buy products from directly and they’ll ship right to your door.
Next? We used Twitter to discuss a new product with people around the world, get feedback on what they want, and the designers, who no longer will be in Europe or America, can work with the customers to build something highly customized and that serves their needs exactly. Then a factory gets fired up and the product gets shipped out — all within days of the Twitter storm.

...showed me a new gadget that will get on blogs like Engadget, Gizmodo, Obsessable, GearLive, Gdgt, CrunchGear. It is mind blowing. The engineering is done all in China. The factories are all in China. The website will be hosted in China, or maybe over on one of the new clouds that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Rackspace are now opening up. The brand name will be done in China, via Twitter and FriendFeed. The PR is done in China via Twitter and FriendFeed, or maybe via a blogger tour in San Francisco and New York because that’s where most of the gadget bloggers live (last night CNN’s Rick Sanchez Twittered me, which demonstrates that Twitter has a powerful reach now into mainstream media).
This is total ownership of everything. Total disruption of everyone who used to make money along the supply chain. Retailers? Disrupted. Traders and middlemen and distributors? Disrupted. Web designers and developers? Disrupted.
Are you scared yet?
You should be if you are being disrupted.

Where are the high value bits in this whole process?
Not the manufacturing.
The real value and profit is in two places: R&D and coming up with new businesses and new ideas.

Other jobs that’ll open up? Anything involved in building brands. Marketing, PR, blogging/Twittering/FriendFeeding, building web experiences, videos, going to conferences to show off new products to audiences, etc.

That’s it. That’s where our new economy is going to be. And this process will happen to EVERYTHING. The American car industry? Well, they figured out how to sell Buick’s and Chevy’s to the Chinese, so if I were working at GM right now I’d be trying to figure out how to take advantage of this new manufacturing capability and ability to ship custom cars right to your house.

Americans are being fed only the negative stories about China and that is lulling them into complacency. The largest book store in the world is in Shenzhen. The largest city hall I’ve ever seen is here. The largest library I’ve ever been in is here. This is an increasingly educated workforce that’s just starting to get going. Americans need to come to China and see what’s going on because it is absolutely stunning in its scale."

Are YOU really ready for all this???