Has the World Grown Smaller?

Jules Verne: Around the World in Eighty Days , New York: Bantam Books 1998. p. 10-12, p. 15, p. 158-160, p. 161-163

Bolko von Oetinger: Ist die Erde geschrumpft?, The Boston Consulting Group 2004 , Translated excerpts from Ist die Erde geschrumpft?, used by permission of the author, 06 May 2005

Introduction

1873—a typical year of the last third of the 19th century, a breathtaking century of ever accelerating progress. The population of Europe had doubled since the turn of the 19th century. The "last frontier" of the American continent had been pushed westward to reach the Pacific. In 1869, the "Golden Spike" was hammered home in Utah, joining the Central and Union Pacific Railroads to form the first transcontinental railway. Thousands of pioneers settled the regions east of the rivers Missouri and Mississippi. An international network of means of traffic and communication already covered the globe and acted as accelerator to the Industrial Revolution.

1873 was the year when Jules Verne published his novel "Around the World in Eighty Days." When he calculated eighty days to circumnavigate the world, he was still writing the best science fiction of his time. But historians have long proved that even in 1873 a trip around the world was theoretically feasible in eighty days, using the means of travel of the era.

Verne's novel marks one of the first culmination points of globalization. "Has the world grown smaller?," asks one of the gentlemen in London's prestigious Reform Club, fueling a vivid discussion that finally leads to Phileas Fogg's trip around the world. Verne shows that western means of transport and communication have in fact altered our notion of global space. Countries far away become closer if they can be traversed by train. Steamboats connect the U.S. and Europe at the end of the 19th century. The meaning of distance and space changes.

But why should the business strategist worry about space?

Thinking about space and spaces seems entirely disconnected at first sight from the daily preoccupations of business leaders. But space has a strikingly strategic quality. The possibility to choose the space in which our actions play out makes it a truly strategic factor. We can choose whether to pursue our business more strongly in China or in the United States; we can decide in which channels we want to sell products, and we can establish production plants in global networks throughout the entire world. Managers can discover new opportunities for growth of their business at the frontiers of current markets and business models. There, they can find vast, unexplored spaces. Occupying them long before competitors do can secure competitive advantage and create new value.

What can such "new spaces" be? It can be geographic expansion into a new region, but also the discovery of a new way of interacting with customers or a new product. Is "space" therefore just synonymous with "market"? We think it is not. Music exchange through the Internet, for example, occupied an (illegal, Napster-branded) space long before it became a real business market.

Thinking about Verne's perspective on the global traveler Phileas Fogg, the increased connectivity of global markets, and the accelerated exchange between them, plays a key role in global business today. The change of space also changes the way companies operate in it.

Space is also a cognitive phenomenon. Our brains produce cognitive maps that reflect a socially constructed reality and represent our views of the space we act in.

For example, medical research has shown that London taxi drivers develop significantly enlarged hippocampi in their brains (see exhibit). They develop specific cognitive maps, in this case of the streets of London, and adapt them daily. Everything that is not reflected in or outside this cognitive map needs to be learned. If managers accept certain statements and ideas without questioning their assumptions, they follow their (limited) cognitive maps. By doing so, they often limit their own competence and capabilities. Only few managers are aware that their own cognitive maps are limited by definition and restrict their view of the world and of specific business problems. If managers acknowledge the subjectivity of their own cognitive maps and the existence of other, probably more powerful maps (e.g., at competitors), they can significantly enlarge their strategic space.

Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days" shows us how to push the boundaries of one's own mental map by simply not accepting the common belief of his peers that circumnavigating the world in eighty days is impossible.

A scene in London's Reform Club

There were Mr. Fogg's usual partners at whist: Andrew Stuart, an engineer; John Sullivan and Samuel Fallentin, bankers; Thomas Flanagan, a brewer; and Gauthier Ralph, one of the Directors of the Bank of England—all rich and highly respectable personages, even in a club which comprises the princes of English trade and finance.

The gentlemen were discussing the chances of a thief who had robbed the Bank of England to escape via Liverpool, Glasgow, Havre, Suez, Brindisi, New York, and other ports.

"I maintain," said Stuart, "that the chances are in favor of the thief, who must be a shrewd fellow."

"Well, but where can he fly to?" asked Ralph. "No country is safe for him."

"Pshaw!"

"Where could he go, then?"

"Oh, I don't know that. The world is big enough."

"It was once," said Phileas Fogg, in a low tone.

"What do you mean by 'once'? Has the world grown smaller?"

"Certainly," returned Ralph. "I agree with Mr. Fogg. The world has grown smaller, since a man can now go round it ten times more quickly than a hundred years ago. And that is why the search for this thief can get away more easily."

"And also why the thief can get away more easily."

But the incredulous Stuart was not convinced, and said eagerly: "You have a strange way, Ralph, of proving that the world has grown smaller. So, because you can go round it in three months—"

"In eighty days," interrupted Phileas Fogg.

"That is true, gentlemen," added John Sullivan. "Only eighty days, now that the section between Rothal and Allahabad, on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, has been opened. Here is the estimate made by the Daily Telegraph:

From London to Suez via Mont Cenis and Brindisi, by rail and steamboats: 7 days

From Suez to Bombay, by steamer: 13 days

From Bombay to Calcutta, by rail: 3 days

From Calcutta to Hong Kong, by steamer: 13 days

From Hong Kong to Yokohama (Japan), by steamer: 6 days

From Yokohama to San Francisco, by steamer: 22 days

From San Francisco to New York, by rail: 7 days

From New York to London, by steamer and rail: 9 days

Total: 80 days

"Yes, in eighty days!" exclaimed Stuart. "But that doesn't take into account bad weather, contrary winds, shipwrecks, railway accidents, and so on."

"All included," returned Phileas Fogg.

"But suppose the Hindoos or Indians pull up the rails," replied Stuart, "suppose they stop the trains, pillage the luggage-vans, and scalp the passengers!"

"All included," calmly retorted Fogg.

Stuart went on: "You are right theoretically, Mr. Fogg, but practically—"

"Practically also, Mr. Stuart."

"I'd like to see you do it in eighty days."

"It depends on you. Shall we go?"

"Heaven preserve me! But I would wager four thousand pounds that such a journey, made under these conditions, is impossible."

"Quite possible, on the contrary," returned Mr. Fogg.

"Well, make it then!"

"The journey round the world in eighty days?"

"Yes."

"I should like nothing better."

"When?"

"At once. Only I warn you that I shall do it at your expense."

"It's absurd!" cried Stuart, who was beginning to be annoyed at the persistency of his friend.

"Well, Mr. Fogg," said Stuart, "it shall be so: I will wager the four thousand on it."

"Calm yourself, my dear Stuart," said Fallentin. "It's only a joke."

"When I say I'll wager," returned Stuart, "I mean it."

"All right," said Mr. Fogg; and, turning to the others, he continued, "I have a deposit of twenty thousand at Baring's which I will willingly risk upon it."

"Twenty thousand pounds!" cried Sullivan. "Twenty thousand pounds, which you would lose at a single accidental delay!"

"The unforeseen does not exist," quietly replied Phileas Fogg.

"But, Mr. Fogg, eighty days are only the estimate of the least possible time in which the journey can be made."

"A well-used minimum suffices for everything."

"But, in order not to exceed it, you must jump mathematically from the trains upon the steamers upon the trains again."

"I will jump—mathematically."

"You are joking."

"A true Englishman doesn't joke when he is talking about so serious a thing as a wager," replied Phileas Fogg, solemnly. "I will bet twenty thousand pounds against any one who wishes, that I will make the tour of the world in eighty days or less; in nineteen hundred and twenty hours, or a hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred minutes. Do you accept?"

"We accept," replied Messrs. Stuart, Fallentin, Sullivan, Flanagan, and Ralph, after consulting each other.

"Good," said Mr. Fogg. "The train leaves for Dover at a quarter before nine. I will take it."

"This very evening?" asked Stuart.

"This very evening," returned Phileas Fogg. He took out and consulted a pocket almanac, and added, "As today is Wednesday, the second of October, I shall be due in London, in this very room of the Reform Club, on Saturday, the twenty-first of December, a quarter before nine p.m.; or else the twenty thousand pounds, now deposited in my name at Baring's, will belong to you, in fact and in right, gentlemen. Here is a check for the amount."

A memorandum of the wager was at once drawn up and signed by the six parties, during which Phileas Fogg preserved a stoical composure. He certainly did not bet to win, and he had only staked the twenty thousand pounds, half of his fortune, because he foresaw that he might have to expend the other half to carry out this difficult, not to say unattainable, project. As for his antagonists, they seemed much agitated; not so much by the value of their stake, as because they had some scruples about betting under conditions so difficult to their friend.

[…]

Two first-class tickets for Paris having been speedily purchased, Mr. Fogg was crossing the station to the train, when he perceived his five friends of the Reform.

"Well, gentleman," said he, "I'm off, you see; and if you will examine my passport when I get back, you will be able to judge whether I have accomplished the journey agreed upon."

"Oh, that would be quite unnecessary, Mr. Fogg," said Ralph politely. "We will trust your word, as a gentlemen of honor."

"You do not forget when you are due in London again?" asked Stuart.

"In eighty days; on Saturday, the 21st of December, 1872, at a quarter before nine p.m. Good-bye, gentlemen."

Finale at the Reform Club: Eighty days later

His five friends of the Reform Club passed these days in a state of feverish suspense. Would Phileas Fogg, whom they had forgotten, reappear before their eyes! No news of him had been received. Was he dead? Had he abandoned the effort, or was he continuing his journey along the route agreed upon? And would he appear on Saturday, the 21st of December, at a quarter before nine in the evening, on the threshold of the Reform Club saloon?

On the twenty-first of December, the five antagonists of Phileas Fogg had met in the great saloon of the club. John Sullivan and Samuel Fallentin, the bankers, Andrew Stuart, the engineer, Gauthier Ralph, the director of the Bank of England, and Thomas Flanagan, the brewer, one and all waited anxiously.

When the clock indicated twenty minutes past eight, Andrew Stuart got up, saying, "Gentlemen, in twenty minutes the time agreed upon between Mr. Fogg and ourselves will have expired."

"What time did the last train arrive from Liverpool?" asked Thomas Flanagan.

"At twenty-three minutes past seven," replied Gauthier Ralph, "and the next does not arrive till ten minutes after twelve."

"Well, gentlemen," resumed Andrew Stuart, "if Phileas Fogg had come in the 7.23 train, he would have got here by this time. We can therefore regard the bet as won."

"Wait; don't let us be too hasty," replied Samuel Fallentin.

"You know that Mr. Fogg is very eccentric. His punctuality is well known; he never arrives too soon, or too late; and I should not be surprised if he appeared before us at the last time."

"Sixteen minutes to nine!" said John Sullivan, in a voice which betrayed his emotion.

One minute more, and the wager would be won. Andrew Stuart and his partners suspended their game. They left their cards, and counted the seconds.

At the fortieth second, nothing. At the fiftieth, still nothing.

At the fifty-fifth, a loud cry was heard in the street, followed by applause, hurrahs, and some fierce growls.

The players rose from their seats.

At the fifty-seventh second the door of the saloon opened; and the pendulum had not beat the sixtieth second when Phileas Fogg appeared, followed by an excited crowd who had forced their way through the club doors, and, in his calm voice, said "Here I am, gentlemen!"

How Phileas Fogg finally arrived on time in London

"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" cried Passepartout [the servant]. "You have made a mistake of one day. We arrived twenty-four hours ahead of time; but there are only ten minutes left!"

Passepartout had seized his master by the collar, and was dragging him along with irresistible force.

Phileas Fogg, thus kidnapped, without having time to think, left his house, jumped into a cab, promised a hundred pounds to the cabman, and, having run over two dogs and overturned five carriages, reached the Reform Club.

The clock indicated a quarter before nine when he appeared in the great saloon.

Phileas Fogg had accomplished the journey round the world in eighty days!

Phileas Fogg had won his wager of twenty thousand pounds!

How was it that a man so exact and fastidious could have made this error of a day? How came he to think that he arrived in London on Saturday, the twenty-first of December, when it was really Friday, the twentieth, the seventy-ninth day only from his departure?

The cause of the error is very simple.

Phileas Fogg had, without suspecting it, gained one day on his journey, and this merely because he had traveled constantly eastward; he would, on the contrary, have lost a day, had he gone in the opposite direction, that is, westward.

Phileas Fogg had won his wager, and had made his journey around the world in eighty days. To do this, he had employed every means of conveyance—steamers, railways, carriages, yachts, trading-vessels, sledges, elephants. The eccentric gentleman had throughout displayed all his marvelous quality of coolness and exactitude. But what then? What had he really gained by all his trouble? What had he brought back from his long and weary journey?

Nothing, say you? Perhaps so; nothing but a charming woman, who, strange as it may appear, made him the happiest of men.

Truly, would you not for less than that make the tour around the world?

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1,804 words

Keywords:
Space; Cognitive maps; Globalization; Strategy; Growth; Competitive advantage; Expansion; Boundaries