As the CEO of a global company (formed as a direct byproduct of fascinating discussion on FW in its first year or two) with a working staff of between 8 and 12 (the number depending on how many individuals feel like working at any one time) who live in 6 countries and sells products to over 60 countries, I am particularly interested in articles about the phenomenon.
For want of any Great Thought with my morning pot of tea, I offer a shortened version of a Financial Times article of 2 January by Geoffrey Owen which FWers might like to read: <<<< THE AGE OF ENTERPRISE Geoffrey Owen As a reporter on the FT in the 1960s and 1970s I was constantly being told that this or that industry would, over the next few years, become concentrated in the hands of a few giant companies. Global economies of scale, it was said, would lead inevitably to the extinction of small and medium-sized companies, unless they were highly specialised. How boring the world would have been if this prediction had come true. Fortunately, what is going on in business today points in the opposite direction. One of the most cheering developments is the deconstruction of the large, bureaucratic corporation and, along with it, the rebirth of the entrepreneur. The dot-com crash notwithstanding, there is every reason to believe that this trend will continue in 2002 and beyond. What we are seeing is more than the unbundling of overweight conglomerates, a process that began in the 1980s. Whole industries are being reshaped -- telecommunications, chemicals and textiles are three obvious examples -- under the impact of international competition, stock market pressure and technological change. . . . . One of the great advantages of globalisation, contrary to the views of protesters, is that it reduces the power of established companies and, by promoting new entry, widens consumer choice. It is a powerful contributor to the gale of creative destruction that is blwoing through many industries today. . . . . All the advanced industrial countries are in the throes of what has been described as a shift from the managed to the entrepreneurial economy. The argument is that a combination of factors, including the transfer of much commodity-style production to developing countries and the growth of knowledge-based industries in which economies of scale are less important than in, say, steel-making or cars, is enhancing the role of smaller companies. Nimbleness and flexibility are the qualities needed to cope with the turbulence and diversity of today's markets and they are not normally found in large corporations. Of course, this prediction may be no more accurate than the earlier one about the inexorable rise of giant corporations. But it is hard to imagine a return to the days of stable markets. Unpredictability is now the norm and that calls for a different industrial structure and a different way of running businesses. All this fluidity makes the task of entrepreneurs and managers more hazardous -- but it certainly will not be boring. >>>> Keith Hudson __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
