Date: 2 Nov 93 15:13 -0600 From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Globalization, Technology and Competition" BKGLBTCH.RVW 980930 Havard Business School Press Soldiers Field Road Boston, MA 02163 617-495-6700 617-495-6117 800-545-7685 617-495-6444 617-495-6334 fax: 617-496-8066 or McGraw-Hill Ryerson/Osborne 300 Water Street Whitby, Ontario L1N 9B6 416-430-5000 416-430-5047 Rita Bisram, Marketing fax: 416-430-5020 or 2600 Tenth St. Berkeley, CA 94710 USA 415-548-2805 800-227-0900 "Globalization, Technology and Competition", Bradley/Hausman/Nolan, U$34.95 The inclusion of "globalization" and "competition" in the title, as well as the imprimatur of the Harvard Business School indicate that this will be other than a technical manual. At the same time, the subtitle does give one hope that there will be some technical material of interest. One should know better by now. When business and technical interests clash, business always wins. "Business" research, along with much of economics, reminds one of the statement about much of educational research: if it isn't blatant nonsense, it's stuff your grandmother knew. As they say in Russia, there is no pravda in Izvetsia, and no izvetsia in Pravda (a pun on the names of the two major papers, the "Truth" and the "News"). This compilation of papers appears to have been taken from a single symposium and made to fit into a book. The heavy preponderance of professors from Harvard and MIT make the work seem quite self-indulgent. The range of companies studied goes from big to big: by the time you are finished you will know more than you ever wanted about the International Stock Exchange, General Electric Information Services, Saturn, Benetton, Wal-Mart and Rosenbluth Travel. In the absence of a preface or foreword, chapter (or paper) one, with the slightly reordered title of "Global Competition and Technology", would seem to fill that role, particularly as it is the only content of part one. However, after an initial laying of some foundations and a seeming introduction to part two, this first paper drifts into a mini-"Megatrend" essay which tries to touch all of the communications, technology and globalization bases without much apparent structure. The technical background is suspect in places, as where the authors applaud the death of standards, suggesting that this will drive the movement to open systems. This indicates a very profound lack of understanding of the necessity of standards for the open systems concept to even exist, and a limiting of the definition of "standard" to "proprietary standards", itself almost an oxymoron. Part two discusses organizational structures. If the aim is to propose any suggested style for "global" organizations, it is only scantily achieved. Malone and Rockart give us some rewording of Naismith's "networking", structure with an organization (as opposed to the hierarchical pyramid of traditional companies) with "adhocracies" and "answer networks". However, they appear to be proposing that such structures already exist within large corporations: their only evidence is a "gee whiz" listing of some information technologies already in use. Some idea of the framework under which a global organizational structure could develop would be helpful. Eccles and Nolan appear to want to give us that. Instead, we get a retreading of the usual "policy vs procedure" model of delegation from management to line workers (under the new phrase "superordinate design"). Tacking an additional title onto an existing acronym (GIS, commonly known as geographic information systems but here used as global information systems), Konsynski and Karimi purport to help us to design worldwide networks. Instead, we have vague business terms being applied to complex networking problems; one admission that networks might be limited by available technologies; and one "case study" which lists applications which are, again, impressive but do not address current major problems. Part three purports to talk about the creation and restructuring of industries. Whether this is supposed to be prescriptive (how to restructure) or descriptive (what new industries *will* look like) is left open. In any case, definitive statements about restructuring are hard to come by. Bradley's article lists some new industries and some restructured companies. But the role of information technology is not directly linked to any changes. The promised examination of the value and cost justification is limited to two paragraphs stating that measurements of return on investment for networks are difficult, seldom done, but should be done. Not very helpful. (In addition it is very difficult, in the paper, to distinguish technical networking from business, political or social "networking".) Hayter's chapter discussing the changes wrought by the introduction of electronic trading to the International Stock Exchange is fascinating but somewhat limited by the lack of specific examples of change to affected companies. The restructuring of a manufacturing industry is examined in the case of a particular company, but the Jaikumar/Upton paper goes to the opposite extreme and fails to give any account of technology in this firm limited not only to one nation, but to a restricted area within Italy. The Hammond article does study one technology area ("point of sale" information) and one industry (retail sales, particularly fashion) and produces the best of the bunch. More detail would have been helpful. One example in the fashion industry cites a six-week response time. That is half a "season" in fashion: it would be interesting to see how to shorten it. Part four is ostensibly aimed at the general manager who needs to respond strategically to the changes of globalization and technology. One would assume, therefore, that this section would be primarily practical. Not so. A paper by Clemons again trying to cover the whole field (and, again, demonstrating a basic misunderstanding of the business aspects of computing by the statement that information technology investments are feasible and not restricted to a single use with a single partner), a presentation of an IBM study on globalization that stresses "balance", and an interesting study of GM's Saturn division which makes almost no mention of technology. The one useful article details the international "expansion" of a travel agency through alliances with "local" firms in other countries and the use of technological assistance which supports and cements the alliance. The final section of the book is entitled, "Competing with Technology". However you wish to interpret that, the three papers have little to do with it. Hausman lists activities of various telecommunications carriers overseas, while the other two articles are two versions of peering into the future. The Marx article is quite "blue sky" in its assessment. The Hald and Konsynski article is more detailed but perhaps no more useful. The technologies it examines are certainly interesting. However, the recent development of a dependable replacement for the century-old gas meter design will likely turn a seven hundred million dollar gas meter supply industry into a twenty-five million dollar industry within three years (and have an even greater impact on gas service.) This may not be as "sexy" as virtual reality, but it will affect business much more over the next five years. The conference that prompted this book may simply have been a bad one. In all likelihood, though, this is a fair representation of current business thinking with regard to technology. Fuzzy. I would recommend that managers with a technical background study this book. My reason is the same reason I would give for studying BASIC. In self defence, it behooves you to know what the brass is being fed, and, what nonsense you might have to deal with. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1993 BKGLBTCH.RVW 980930 Permission granted to distribute with unedited copies of the TELECOM Digest and associated mailing lists/newsgroups. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 DECUS Symposium '94, Vancouver, BC, Mar 1-3, 1994, contact: rulag@decus.ca