FT: “In business, bad timing can be as disastrous as a bad idea. Many will remember the first dotcom bubble. In many cases, businesses went wrong not because they did not foresee the future but because they did not understand how long it would take for that future to arrive. This was particularly true in the media. Visionary execs predicted smartphones, streaming and broadcast opportunities. And they were prescient. But what they didn’t factor in was how far off decent broadband, high-end mobiles and so on, were. So vast amounts of money was wasted. Moving too quickly was an expensive mistake. Bad timing is another way of saying that you have misread the circumstances…Moving too fast can be as catastrophic as moving in the wrong direction. It is not a forgivable frailty.”
Andy Mukherjee: “Should India double down on software services, where it has proven prowess and strong outsourcing companies? Or must it follow the successful East Asian model and bet big on factory work to generate mass employment? Maybe there is a third way…It may not lead to the 70 million new jobs the economy needs over a decade, but it could help garner much more value per employee than either assembling electronics or selling software as a remotely produced service. This third way is software products.”
strategy+business: “Change begins to scale when people are given resources to help them achieve things they already believed in. The method succeeds because it empowers people to see themselves as heroes within their own story. In the hospital example, the tally of lives saved was incentive enough. The success of the new initiatives, in turn, shifts the perceptions of those around them, opening up new possibilities, and achieving even greater impact. This approach—convincing, not coercing—can be used in all areas where companies seek to introduce new ways of working, be it new technology or simply new procedures. Though it may be tempting for managers to impose change on everyone simultaneously, a better approach is to start small and give change enthusiasts the resources they need. In the final analysis, successful transformation is about empowerment, not persuasion. By designing a resource that those who believe in change can co-opt for their own purposes, you can unlock powerful forces that enable change.”
Economist: “A radical alternative really is taking shape. Some call it “global resilience” or “economic statecraft”. We call it “homeland economics”. The crucial idea is to reduce risks to a country’s economy—those presented by the vagaries of markets, an unpredictable shock such as a pandemic, or the actions of a geopolitical opponent. Supporters say this will produce a world that is safer, fairer and greener..It will, in large part, create the opposite…Homeland economics will create billions of losers. Beneath the apparent reasonableness, there is a deep incoherence. It is based on an overly pessimistic reading of neoliberal globalisation, which in fact held great benefits for most of the world. The benefits of the new approach are at best uncertain. Meanwhile, attempts to break free economically from China are likely to be partial, at best. The benefits of green subsidies for the fight against climate change are also less clear than their proponents admit.” More: “Homeland economics will ultimately prove to be a disappointment. It misdiagnoses what has gone wrong, it overburdens the state with unmeetable responsibilities and it will botch a period of rapid social and technological change. The good news is that eventually it will bring about its own demise.”
