I just returned from a trip to Austin, Texas, with a team of young entrepreneurs who are launching a company in the fitness/exercise industry. Their product offering includes a personal electronic measurement device, a Web site that can be customized for the client and a docking station that serves as the interface between the personal device and the computer.

As we met with various groups of investors and business leaders, it was interesting to track the issues that these professionals considered to be most important to the success of this new business venture.

One recurring assumption was that the manufacturing of the device and docking station would be done offshore. One of the first questions of the team was: "In what foreign country will you manufacture your product?" It made no sense to these people that this new company would not consider itself to be a "global" player from Day One.

Thankfully, the entrepreneurial management team had arranged for a Malaysian company to build the product. Throughout the two days I could see that any answer to the manufacturing question other than foreign would have been an indication to these investment professionals that this team was not on top of the key drivers of their business. Company size, time in business or location no longer limit how a business should be strategically positioned in today's world.

In his book "The World is Flat," Thomas Friedman discusses how several forces have forever changed the world in which we live. Five of these flattening forces are: the fall of communism and the rise of democracy; the Internet; outsourcing of components of almost all businesses; "offshoring"; and supply chaining ("a method of collaborating horizontally among suppliers, retailers and customer - to create value"). The combined impact of these forces and others has made our world horizontal.

Competitive barriers that have long protected some industries have been removed. Cost advantages have been moved to new young companies and away from big and entrenched enterprises. Time to market for new products has been reduced from months to weeks. Knowledge is no longer owned by the powerful, but shared and available to the masses. Market power requires knowledge, flexibility, speed and not just company size.

Examples of this new "flat" business model can be found in our own backyard:

• A VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) company in Lindon sells its services to businesses in Mexico, then routes the Internet calls through a servicing facility in Utah County.
• A Utah logo design company uses the Internet to connect 45,000 customers from 102 countries with 200 graphic artists from 26 countries (85 percent from the United States).
• A Salt Lake architectural firm sends its initial design drawings electronically to the Philippines at the end of the business day and returns the next morning to finished drawings that have been entered into a CAD system overnight - reducing to hours/days what once took days/weeks to accomplish.

The new company to which I earlier referred will have its headquarters in Texas, with manufacturing in Malaysia. Distribution will include a combination of direct sales and strategic partnerships to access multiple channels. And the market will have no boundaries.

Interestingly, these entrepreneurs are all under 25. In their minds, the world has always been flat; they see no barriers and only look for competitive advantages.

In Friedman's words: "Economic competition in the flat world will be more equal and more intense. On such a flat earth, the most important attribute you can have is creative imagination - the ability to be the first on your block to figure out how all these enabling tools can be put together in new and exciting ways to create products, communities, opportunities and profits."

If you have been in business for more than a few months and have not recently used your creative imagination to test and rethink your business model, it is time that you seriously look at what gives you a sustainable competitive position. Your greatest threat may not come from a long-time competitor, but from a new business, run by 20-somethings who believe that a flat world has changed everything.