Book Review: "Globalization, Technology and Competition"

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Opposing view points or reviews are welcome. THIS EDITOR DOES NOT
NECESSARILY AGREE WITH THIS (who knows) but it will get people either
thinking or angry :-)


Dave




Date:  2 Nov 93 15:13 -0600
From: Rob Slade <roberts () decus arc ab ca>
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