One of the real headaches facing any technology company trying to survive in this era of rapid and even chaotic change, is maintaining a balanced expectation, this between its Leadership and its Workers who will need to implement and follow through with these challenges.
Having worked in technology for decades I have seen how difficult this task is, and also how few are able to successfully tackle this head-on!
It's hard enough when a particular product line becomes obsolete, or simply no longer economically viable, or if a competitor has a superior or cheaper solution etc., but how the industry faces these challenges is what I am focusing on here.
The most effective and probably most efficient way forward when change becomes inevitable, is to face the reality directly and ensure that all staff/workers are briefed and included in company communications to ensure that water cooler talk and rumor mongering is silenced. Failure to do so can be devastating over time.
I worked for a European multinational technology company in the 1980's and early 1990's. When they simply could no longer compete with their Taiwanese competitors, they made a decision to sell off all the manufacturing plants and rather outsource their requirements to 3rd party suppliers. What was impressive was that this decision was clearly communicated to all employees worldwide. This before any negotiations with a possible buyer had begun.
The employees understood the situation, understood the plan and most importantly were able to communicate this directly with their customers too. Sadly this example was an exception rather than the norm.
Unfortunately the norm is usually something quite different, which I have witnessed many times over the years....ad nauseam:
1. Deny any problem with the product/strategy/solution exists and simply put it down to "minor teething problems". Employees will eventually be forced to lie to customers and hide the true situation even when the consequences are clearly going have costly implications for both parties.
CEO's putting their heads in the sand and pretending the problems will go away is sadly something I have seen many times. These same leaders will often move to a new company and do this same maneuver all over again.
2. Continual restructuring of the business and moving employees from one post to another. This because the company lacks the vision or leadership to know what to do next, or simply having no answer to superior competitive products/solutions. Even worse, under these conditions, the top talent usually leaves whilst the dead-wood remains. Companies that constantly need restructuring are simply not facing a reality: The problem probably lies with their leadership!
3. When constant restructuring fails to achieve results, the Motivational Speakers and Leadership Workshop crowd are often brought in. In essence, if a company cannot find answers from within the organization, how can they honestly expect (from what are often nothing more than external "Snake Oil Salesmen") to perform miracles? In my experiencing these "smooth talkers" simply come in and try to create hot air. I have not seen much proof of any success. Clearly if these folk were so clued up and knew all the answers, they would not be stuck in backroom hotel conference rooms trying to create false or fake hope with nothing more than hot air (and cheap suits). They would be running the real show.... in the executive Suite itself!!
4. Selling off parts or individual units of a business: Some companies will find themselves in a situation of having to hive off parts of a business. This is not only when a particular business unit become unprofitable, but also when certain products are no longer regarded as a key core competency of the business. Sadly we now seem to live in an era where "going back to core competence" has become the business case of choice. So selling off unwanted business units have become very common. But after many decades in large corporate environments, I differ with this view. Business at the end of the day is very much an issue of Risk Management.
Individual Investors are always told to diversify, spread their risk and never place all their eggs in one basket or asset class. Yet this is exactly the opposite what many companies are now doing.
My former employer during a poor performing year, was saved by one of their non core business units which happened to have done well, and landed up carrying the entire company for this period. Not having all its eggs in one basket enabled it to recover, yet only a short few years later this entire division was disposed of and sold to a foreign buyer.
Fortunately, I don't have to suffer from the "Clueless in Wonderland" crowd any more, this as I am semi retired, and run my own show.
Edit: This recent article on BBC News gives a good example of the above:
Xerox’s Folly!
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