The second industrial revolution began right at the beginning of the twentieth century with the use of conveyor belts in production. The entrepreneur of the conveyor belt was Henry Ford with his famous car model Model T. Ford, however, emphasized handling the manufacturing process from A-Z and letting the company itself construct all the parts and manage the assembly of the cars. It was said that even the wood in the dashboard would come from Ford’s privately owned forest. This made the manufacturing process very complicated and resulted in a number of disadvantages. This was partly due to the fact that the company was in the midst of a complete upheaval when the third decade of the last century passed. Fords’ failure can be called a lack of focus. Instead of focusing on the production of cars, the focus was on producing all the car parts, which is not the same at all.
Much water has flowed to the sea since then, but still the most common mistakes of our time are focused on production. This is especially true for entrepreneurs.
However, one of the main benefits of the technological advances of recent years is that outsourcing projects is becoming much easier. An example of this is that utilization of software solutions and other components of production is no longer the exception but rather the “norm” in business operations. Thus, businesses can increasingly focus on their field of expertise and stay focused.
This is very important for smaller companies who have a hard time managing high overhead costs. A small entrepreneurial company is also built around innovation in a very specific area, e.g., the design or function of individual components of larger process. Thus, employees and owners need all their attention to gain a foothold on the marketplace they have chosen.
This demarcation creates opportunities for small businesses to have a great impact on a large market and provides considerable income growth opportunities. These revenue opportunities lie in, among other things, the sale or lease of design or patents, as the expertise of a small company can be used on a very large scale. Such an impact on the operation of large international companies can be great, and they are to pay sums that are proportional to the size of the company.
Flexibility and a “smaller world” provide companies with better negotiating positions against large companies interested in utilizing the technology of the company. These increased possibilities for specialization create opportunities for smaller and more isolated nations like Iceland. Due to advances in telecommunications technology, we are no longer bounded by our geographical position. We can use globalization to create more diverse job opportunities in the country. Specialization and diversity in employment also make us less dependent on changes in key industries.