"El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First!" (lightningzone)
09/07/2014 at 12:57 • Filed to: None
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"El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First!" (lightningzone)
09/07/2014 at 12:57 • Filed to: None | 1
| 6 |
And with this, comes the question, are Asian conglomerates too big for their own good?
Sure, after WW2 we kept telling Asians, especially the Japanese that bigger is better, and they noted that, they noted that, big.
So big that now they have companies with divisions in what it seems to be, too many arms of the industry and executive teams that have to run a division in an industry branch, and learning the basics of that branch in the same time.
Wouldn't be better if instead of going bigger, big corporations would go smaller, focusing on less products or services, but doing those extremely well, and venturing in new areas of business, only when opportunities appear?
Yeah, it is strange that a guy who's got generalist , in his job description calls for specializing, but it is an idea, maybe a bad idea, but just how modern wars are fought with special forces and limited numbers of high tech weapons, rather than giant armies engaged in huge battles, maybe a change in the same direction is coming on the business environment, too.
TwinCharged - Is Now UK Opponaut
> El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First!
09/07/2014 at 13:02 |
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Wouldn't be better if instead of going bigger, big corporations would go smaller, focusing on less products or services, but doing those extremely well, and venturing in new areas of business, only when opportunities appear?
Tell that to BMW.
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El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First!
> TwinCharged - Is Now UK Opponaut
09/07/2014 at 13:24 |
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Still a car, that's not what I meant.
Steve in Manhattan
> El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First!
09/07/2014 at 13:33 |
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Look at Yamaha - musical instruments (owned 2 of their pianos and one electronic at various points) band and orchestra instruments, electronics, motorcycles, and the heads on the 3.4 liter V8 in my late SHO. Wow ....
Racescort666
> El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First!
09/07/2014 at 14:39 |
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I would say it depends on how they operate their businesses. If you treat your divisions like separate companies responsible for their own profit then they will have to organize in a manner that suits their market.
Essentially, at a high level, all you care about is money. Divisions get assessed by top management based on profitability and consistency to projections. (If you project you're going to have a bad year, upper management shouldn't be surprised when you have a bad year.)
In this way, the people that need to know how a particular market functions are the people at the top of the divisions and it's their responsibility to make business sense of their operations and communicate that to the next level of management. These are the people who, IMO, should be somewhat technical because they should know their product line and why it's important. If they are technical, (again IMO) it will help them with the long term to justify the unprofitable times and large capital expenditures like new production plants or retooling old plants.
Basically the top level is there for distributing the wealth and handling large capital expenditures. Ideally, with enough diversity, you can afford to have divisional profitability go up and down without having a huge impact to the bottom line and each division doesn't have to worry about running out of money just because their market is in the shitter.
This is of course my own idealize version of how I think it should work and I know that it doesn't necessarily work this way in practice. The key is good middle and upper-middle management that understands their product and market and can communicate that to top management in terms of dollars and timeline.
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El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First!
> Steve in Manhattan
09/07/2014 at 15:00 |
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That's a happy exception. Look at Mitsubishi, mobile division-gone, the tiny drinks division-gone, consumer electronics division - shrunk, new small commercial plane model - delayed, car business - well known.
It would've been better for Mitsubishi, if small groups of the company's shareholders would've got divisions of the company and operate them independently, and keeping the world famous Mitsubishi name, just for marketing purposes.
Jordaneer, The Mountaineer Man
> El Relámpago(LZone) - Humanity First!
09/08/2014 at 11:53 |
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the only problem with the example of Mitsubishi is that they would finance a rock wall, but still no one buys their cars.