Three cheers for some smart governmental policy. Markets do well where there is perfect, or near perfect, information, and limited barriers to entry. Markets do poorly where there are barriers to entry, particularly if they are information based. Technology, IT in particularly, has helped shrink businesses by eliminating layers of management because you no longer need a 6:1 reporting ratio because of paper limitation. Further, Just In Time EVERYTHING, manufacturing, wholesaling, inventory, etc., helps keeps companies lean, just buying things as needed in an open marketplace.
One area where the market failed to make connections was in the manufacturing of products. Contract manufacturing seemed popular with large companies, but there didn’t ever seem to be options for small businesses. Strangely, every entrepreneur I know who made a product made it in China, not because of the cost differential (shipping and monitoring eats it up on small lines) but just because they could get it done.
Department of Commerce’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership helped launch Planet Eureka!, the innovation marketplace. Maybe we’ll be able to get one of my wife’s ideas to market this time around. Thanks to CNN Money for pointing me in this direction, you can read the artile that I read, “What’s your idea worth?”
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