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Title: Race for the World: Strategies to Build a Great Global Firm by Lowell L. Bryan, Lowell L. Bryan, Jeremy Oppenheim, Wilhelm Rall, Jane Fraser ISBN: 0-87584-846-X Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: August, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (8 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Business strategy for inexorable globalization
Comment: Even with the benefit of hindsight, it may not fundamentally matter how much of this book written in 1999 by four McKinsey consultants may seem overtaken by the facts of the post-Internet bubble of the late 1990s. This includes the collapse of Enron, a major McKinsey client which is nonetheless cited in this book as an agile player and adaptator to the inexorbale challenge of globalization which is at the heart of this book. It would be premature for business strategists or policy makers to wholly dismiss this book on account of such obvious errors of judgment.
The basic framework within which this book views the future is shared by similar analyses done by other organizations. Because world trade has tended to grow faster than world economic output, the share of world output produced and consumed in global markets will inevitably grow rapidly - accordingly to this book, from about one-fifth of global output in the late 1990s to four-fifths by 2030. Within this time frame, total global ouptut will also grow, from $28 trillion in 1997 to $91 trillion in 2027. Whence the opportunities for a susbtantial reshaping of the competitive space for global corporations.
What matters is that the fundamental message of this book (which is not by itself novel) is unchanged by the contemporary drivers of competitiveness for national economies and corporations: a dramatic lowering of so-called interaction costs and of barriers in product and factor markets continues to erode the advanatges of geographic incumbents in the business world, fostering the creation of cross-geographic specialists and consolidation of traditional integrators.
Drawing substantially from Mckinsey's own research and data gathered from its Fortune 500 clientele, as well as insights from unconventional non-business sources such as Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, And Steel, the book advises global corporate leaders on how to reshape their firms and create global talent teams. The book is, not surprisingly - given the audience of the book - silent on what policy implications there are for countries which are also trying to adapt to these realities, other than the obvious imperative to open their national economies to world-class suppliers of tangible and intangible capital. There remains an important policy agenda to explore if one takes the fundamental propositions of this book seriously.
Rating: 5
Summary: Very clear vision
Comment: I appreciated very much the clear analisys of the world economic trends. It suggests you a way, a light to manage business in a world of dynamic transition and complexity.
It is a very useful tool to understand what is happening in the global market and especially if you work in a global company like me.
Rating: 2
Summary: yet another mediocre business book on globalism
Comment: Business books tend to gravitate toward one of two poles: the must-reads - those that involve fundamental rethinking of traditional business models - and the no-reads. Regardless of whether a must-read turns out to be right, this category of book establishes a vocabulary and logic of action that people will discuss and attempt to implement for years to come, as did "The Fifth Discipline" and "Reengineering the Corporation." In contrast, the no-read books, which are far too numerous to count, serve principally as resume builders or as crude promotional plugs for consulting firms. As cynical public relations gestures, the no-reads are entirely derivative, repackaging someone else's ideas while implying that you need to hire the authors to gain deeper insights. Indeed, what they have to offer can be summarised easily on the book flap, beyond which only captive student audiences or gullible clients would ever venture.
"Race for the World," another in the series of books by McKinsey & Co. consultants on how to operate in the global economy, straddles the great grey area in between these two poles. The book starts off with a strong analysis of the "transition" economy, in which geographic barriers are rapidly falling before the globalist wave: world's financial markets converging and digital technologies are lowering communication costs; national governments are "under market pressure" to remove the old legal and regulatory barriers to global competition; consumers are gaining unprecedented power, both to find the best prices through some convenient dot.com company and to vote via their investment dollars. This ongoing race (or "midgame") will determine which corporations can position themselves to become the "shapers" of the next century.
The midgame, the authors assert, offers extraordinary, though rapidly vanishing, opportunities around which to build new corporate strategies. With their new-found access to foreign markets, corporations can create "virtuous cycles of geographic expansion," simultaneously increasing their scale of operation, lowering their costs, and using new incoming profits to continue to invest elsewhere. Finally, by setting up their own networks of information, corporations can take advantage of cross-arbitrage opportunities, that is, buy goods and services from whatever country offers them cheapest.
So far so good. While none of this is particularly new or original, it is in the formulation of strategies that the book will stand or fall. According to the authors, global firms must invest in a variety of intangible capital, including intellectual property, talented managers, networks of able partners, and brand image. If a corporation can integrate these intangible assets into a system that operates as of a piece, the authors maintain, then it will have established "a compelling global value proposition": while single elements in the system may be replicable, imitating it as a whole is far more difficult for competitors. Furthermore, the authors argue, global firms should "control, [though] not own" the value chain, which represents a reversal from the practices once praised in large, vertically integrated firms. Sensible advice.
Unfortunately, at this point the authors cross the line that separates lack of originality from banality. Firms must, the authors solemnly inform us, approach potential deals with the appropriate risk assessment techniques, many of which were developed for investment bankers. These techniques include: 1) "disaggregating" the many risks involved in large business decisions, that is, breaking them down to examine who bears what risks and for what, etc.; 2) focusing on those risks for which the firm enjoys "familiarity advantages"; 3) portfolio theory, i.e. diversification spreads risks; 4) options theory, or the ability to acquire a firm at a specified date in the future for a known price. These techniques, the authors conclude, will allow firms to "overcom[e] confusion (lack of necessary knowledge), complexity (unknown interdependencies), and uncertainty (unknowable future events)." While top executives are perhaps too busy to reflect on these strategies systematically, it is difficult to imagine that they haven't thought about these things already.
However, there are deeper flaws at the core of the book. For starters, the seductive rhetoric of globalism is accepted as a given and fails to realistically anticipate any other contingencies, which is a disservice to business readers. The authors' insistence on proper risk analysis techniques cannot capture these complexities. Instead, the authors treat us to a simple extrapolation of current economic conditions. It remains unclear whether the current boom represents a structural trend (a "new economy") or another speculative financial bubble. Confusing the two can lead to terrible mistakes. Unfortunately, though its purpose is to devise better strategies for managers overwhelmed by global change, "Race for the Future" offers no useful guidance in this regard.
Even worse, evidence that contradicts their vision is ignored. The authors naively assume that globalisation is an unalloyed good, that consumers will prefer cheaper, more uniform goods to traditional indigenous varieties.
Many of these shortcomings can be explained by the poorly hidden agenda of the book. How, one wonders, could four intelligent co-authors ever agree on a detailed analytic framework? The answer is simple: the book is part of the McKinsey & Co. publicity machine. It promotes a company methodology, the conclusions of which come straight from McKinsey "research," a kind of parallel universe of jargon, anecdotes, and fierce internal competition for attention between young "associates" fresh out of university. I suspect that, under the steady hand of good ghost writers, "Race for the World" was cobbled together from disparate articles from the McKinsey Quarterly with over-confidence and little critical regard. As a result, the book's "authors," imbued with the company's mystique, fail to recognise the mediocrity of their ideas and advice.
Nonetheless, "Race for the World" is no no-read. As long as the reader is aware of its limitations, it offers a solid introduction to gung-ho globalism. While the book contains more than could be written on a book flap, its ideas could have been resumed in, say, one article in the McKinsey Quarterly.
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Title: The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas L. Friedman ISBN: 0385499345 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 02 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor ISBN: 1578518520 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Competitive Advantage : Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance by Michael E. Porter ISBN: 0684841460 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $37.50 |
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Title: Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping by Paco Underhill ISBN: 0684849143 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 02 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen ISBN: 0060521996 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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