European Business Forum articles from December 22 2003

European Business Forum archives from December 22 2003

Can the Financial Services Industry Be Truly Innovative without a New Breed of Management?
December 22, 2003... A member of the European Advisory Board of the Global Future Forum, Robert Heller is a journalist and business commentator of much renown--he is a prolific writer and author of many best selling management books including the essential managers...

After the Internet, What Will Be the Next Big Thing?
December 22, 2003... Every so often a technological innovation, social revolution or geo-political shift fundamentally changes the business landscape, providing the nimble with new opportunities for profit and the complacent or foolhardy with threats to their...

Blind Faith: Companies Stung after Adopting 'The Next Big Thing' Are Not So Much the Victim of Fads as of Their Own Flippant Disregard for Organisational Fit
December 22, 2003... We live in a culture of the next big thing. By 'the next big thing' I mean new approaches to improving business performance and management. These are ideas that can improve organisational performance: total quality management, process...

It Does Matter: The Argument That IT Should Now Be Completely Outsourced like Any Other Commodity Ignores the Way Technology Contributes to Strategic Competitive Advantage
December 22, 2003... The good and bad thing about Management is that it is no science at all. In order to come up with a new theory in a 'real' science, such as Biology or Mathematics, a scientist has to conduct thorough studies, test the ins and outs of his or her...

Moving beyond a Low-Tech Equilibrium: Evidence Is Emerging That Information and Communication Technologies Will Make a Difference, but Only If We Can Tackle the Reality of Poor Design, Delivery, Management and Maintenance on the Ground
December 22, 2003... Mid-afternoon, Mary's having a conversation with her laptop and a spreadsheet that is causing her trouble. "I just did save it you stupid thing", she says, turning to the researcher and muttering under her breath, "I hate computers". "Right, I'll...

From R & D to R & D: Centralised Research Is Being Reined in for the Foreseeable Future, in Favour of Profitable Product Development
December 22, 2003... Only five years ago investment in R & D was considered a healthy essential for the longevity of industry and society. No matter where you went in the world you would find huge investments realising a steady flow of new and exciting...

Finding Meaning in the Madness: Could Socio-Cultural Relevancy (and Not Technology Breakthrough) Be the Next Big Thing?
December 22, 2003... It is fascinating how certain words or phrases act as 'cultural viruses' which, strongly contagious, spread and multiply though society. Their power comes from the fact that they embody a certain spirit and pre-occupation of the times and, as...

Street-Wise Successes: Society Is Only Just Beginning to Experiment with the Idea That Process Improvements through IT Is of Benefit
December 22, 2003... The 'Next Big Thing' in technology has everyone pretty much flummoxed today. Articles appear in the Harvard Business Review consigning information technology to the fate of heavy industries: growth will simply track changes in GDP. Venture...

Binary Broadsheeting: The Sting of the Dot-Com Bubble Is Only Just Wearing off for Media Companies, but Already New Waves of Technology Are Vying for Their Attention
December 22, 2003... The recent history of the media sector, and of newspapers in particular, may provide a case study of the inherent dangers of being overly zealous in anticipation of the next big thing. Few industries in the late 1990s were unsettled more than...

Nourishing the Roots of Innovation: Nanotechnology Is Not a Disruptive Force in Itself, but Its Effect on Existing Products Will Be
December 22, 2003... Most next big things are obvious with 20:20 hindsight, whether it be the steam engine, electricity or the internet. Economic historians can explain their diffusion and adoption through a series of 'S curves' showing how transistors enabled...

Beyond the Technology Frontier: Over-Reliance on Technology to Deliver the Next Big Thing Has Ultimately Rendered It Impotent
December 22, 2003... Since time immemorial, quixotic characters have used lodestones to seek touchstones, philosophers' stones and rolling stones, all in search of a quick buck. In the 1967 film The Graduate Dustin Hoffman's character, Benjamin Braddock, is given...

Does humour travel?(Brief Article)
December 22, 2003... AUSTRIA "Don't you feel that you're wasting your life: 53 years old and you still haven't sued anyone!" OSWALD HUBER NETHERLANDS "Papa, when we're at the till, please don't complain again about the salary of their...

Wait and Watch: Managers Have a Tendency to Invest in Too Many Losers-What They Need Is an Eye for Ideas That Make Sense, and Less Experimentation
December 22, 2003... EBF should be congratulated on the debate: 'Must we all be entrepreneurs now?' (EBF Autumn 2003, Issue 15). It generated some lively contributions and some head to head debate. Personally, I learned valuable lessons. Robert Burgelman has...

Practice and You Get Luckier: The Most Important Task of Leaders in Dynamic Environments Is to Turn Good Fortune into Strategy
December 22, 2003... I second Andrew's congratulatory remarks to EBF for organising the corporate entrepreneurship debate. Like Andrew, I have found it a learning experience. I also like to thank him for his generous comments about my work. In the spirit of offering...

Exploring the Innovation Pyramid: Change Is Most Effective When Companies Combine Top-Directed Strategic Choice with Middle-Stimulated Initiative and Entrepreneurship
December 22, 2003... I am based in Boston, half-way between Andrew Campbell's England and Robert Burgelman's Northern California. Although geography is not destiny, it's interesting that Campbell appears to approach the problem from the perspective of Empire (how...

Insights on IPOs, M & A Strategy, Knowledge and Change Management
December 22, 2003... EDITOR'S NOTE The In depth section of EBF--which you will find on the next 23 pages--represents a change of style and pace for the reader. While the preceding EBF debate dealt with a single theme and question, presenting a number of sharply...

Lessons from the IPO Bubble: A Study of the Initial Public Offering (IPO) Wave of the Late 1990s Shows That So Far, Little Has Tempted Most European Companies Away from Listing on Their Home Country Exchange
December 22, 2003... The second half of the 1990s saw equity values around the world surge, driven by what Alan Greenspan called the 'irrational exuberance' of investors. In this heady environment, many continental European companies decided for the first time to...

Are You Ready to Learn from Your Offshore Affiliates? Reverse Knowledge Transfers Are Beneficial to MNCs, but Just How Much So Depends on the Subsidiaries' Strategic Mission, Its Country's Economic Development and the Ability of Headquarters to Absorb Incoming Information
December 22, 2003... Managers in the headquarters of multinational companies (MNCs) today recognise the need to access internationally dispersed knowledge. Most scholars, moreover, share the belief that subsidiaries of MNCs are crucial to tap into local 'pockets of...

In My Opinion
December 22, 2003... This article addresses a key topic facing large corporations operating in a highly dynamic and fast changing environment: intra-company knowledge sharing and creation. Whereas in the past, the authors claim, knowledge transfer was mainly from...

Becoming a Prepared Acquirer: Far Too Many Acquisitions Begin as Reactive, One-Off Decisions, That Can Be Classed as Dead-on-Arrival Even before the Transaction Takes Place. Boards Need to Stand Back and Consider the Total Universe of Options
December 22, 2003... Much attention has been given to the Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Tyco, and Global Crossing scandals that resulted in the landmark Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in the US. And for good reason--boards must ensure that appropriate procedures are in...

Organisational Change: Open Your Eyes, Use a Wide Angle Lens; A Study of the Vast Structural and Cultural Change at the Belgian Telcoms Operator Belgacom Illustrates the Importance of Seeing the 'Big Picture' and Learning to Adapt While on the Move
December 22, 2003... 'A way of seeing is a way of not seeing' Poggi, 1965 Triggering and piloting major organisational change can be a huge challenge--sometimes even a nightmare--for business managers. Change, after all, is not a simple journey from the present...

The Race for New E-Business Models: The Case of Allianz Group's Drive to Break Away from the Competition Illustrates the Positive Impact Inter-Firm Competition Can Have on Overall Firm Strategy
December 22, 2003... In 1999, the German insurance giant Allianz recognised that it was lagging behind the market place in e-business activities. The time had come to counter its aggressive competitors. Friedrich Wobking, a Board member of two major business units,...

Diseconomies of Scale
December 22, 2003... It may seem an odd question to ask in the age of globalisation, but why aren't companies bigger than they are? At time of writing, there is no business organisation with more than one million employees or more than ten hierarchical levels. Why...

Corporate Internationalisation
December 22, 2003... Expanding internationally is one of the hardest challenges that faces most companies, and the issues raised by internationalisation go far beyond day-to-day management. Professor Winfried Ruigrok, Dr Hardy Wagner and Dr Wolfgang Amann, all from...

The Tarzan Syndrome
December 22, 2003... The importance of culture and ritual in the workplace can take many different forms. One manifestation which is commonly seen among male workers, especially in heavy industries or industries where there are high levels of risk, is known as the...

Accountability and Culture
December 22, 2003... In the aftermath of recent financial and managerial scandals growing interest has been shown in the subject of accountability generally and, particularly, the setting of standards and procedures which will force companies to become more...

Managing People Risk
December 22, 2003... Risk is always a hot topic among financial services professionals and finance academics, and there is a substantial literature in areas such as operational and credit risk and how to mitigate these. Less common are studies of an area which can...

CSR-Highlights of the Debate
December 22, 2003... Investing in the future It is frustrating that many major companies in the UK have chosen to use their CSR budgets to encourage staff volunteering on specific projects (usually in the locality of their business base). Whilst admirable, this...

Integrating 'Business in Society' into Mainstream Business Education
December 22, 2003... In EBF issue 15 Michael Porter emphasised the need for "the right types and quality of education to future employees" as one of the requirements for business to invest successfully in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and thereby become more...

The Reporting Dilemma: Global Companies Are Pouring More and More Effort into Reporting on Their Socially Responsible Practices-Yet Few Find out for Themselves What's Really Going On
December 22, 2003... Large companies have long been under the aggressive scrutiny of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across the world. But two things have made them more defensive in recent years. First, NGOs themselves have become more effective and have made...

A Tale of Two Reports: Research Suggests That Corporate Reports Are More Likely to Generate Rewards in the Capital Markets If the Reader Can Visualise a Link between Strategy and Areas Such as Employees, the Environment and Corporate Performance
December 22, 2003... Investors care only about the financial numbers. They are short-termists with models based upon the latest quarterly report. Right? Results from a recent experiment conducted in the UK by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Schroders suggest that this...

The Google Paradox: More Information, Less Perspective; Internet Search Engines Have Tempted the Business World into an Electronic Version of a Junk Food Diet-By Making It Too Easy to Settle for Over-Simplified and Pre-Digested Information
December 22, 2003... The internet has changed our lives. We have more information than previous generations could even dream of, let alone access so easily with just a few keystrokes. But how good is the information and is the ease of access more apparent than real?...

Italian firms embrace Shakespeare.(Did You Know)(Brief Article)
December 22, 2003... Italian business leaders are now looking to Shakespeare to discover the key to successful management. The new replica of Shakespeare's Globe in the centre of Rome has been chosen by the Shenker Institute of English to teach 400 Italian...

Football results influence shares.(Did You Know)(Brief Article)
December 22, 2003... Bill Gerrard of Leeds University Business School, UK and his team tracked shares in the 100 biggest UK companies on the day after 210 England football games between 1984 and the end of 2002's World Cup. Increases in share prices (+0.3%)...

The Good Roman Citizen
December 22, 2003... EBF TALKS TO BARON DANIEL JANSSEN, CHAIRMAN OF SOLVAY AND MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN ROUND TABLE OF INDUSTRIALISTS Baron Daniel Janssen is chairman of the Belgian chemical and pharmaceuticals group Solvay--a company founded by his family more...

Political Pilot
December 22, 2003... EBF TALKS TO PAT COX, PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT In June 2004 Pat Cox reaches the end of his two and a half year term as President of the European Parliamentan institution once widely derided as powerless and irresponsible but now...

Awakening the Animal Spirit: Board Members Have a Duty Not Just to Supervise, but to Crack the Whip and Make Sure the Business Is Alive and Moving
December 22, 2003... The group was a mix of Americans and Europeans. The topic--at a recent meeting at the Wharton School, in Philadelphia--was boards of directors. Participants in the discussion included several CEOs, a couple of big-company strategists, several...

Reputational metrics.(Book Review)(Book Review)
December 22, 2003... Fame & Fortune--How Successful Companies Build Winning Reputations by Charles Fombrun and Cees van Riel, Pearson Education, August 2003. ISBN: 0130937371. Warren Buffet, business sage and wily investor, once famously said, "If...

News from EBF Founders
December 22, 2003... Pricewaterhouse Coopers is active in understanding the evolving business environment and its implications. Here are some recent examples: Europe Crunch Time. Embedding IFRS in the Oil & Gas and Utilities To achieve a smooth...