In 2000 a fire at the Philips chip plant in New Mexico sent shockwaves through the telecom industry. Nokia and Ericsson – the two major telecom companies that used the chips– handled this event very differently. Nokia had the processes to deal with it immediately and worked with partners to adapt to what happened. Because Ericsson didn’t have processes in place to deal with this event, it, on the other hand, lost hundreds of millions of dollars immediately. By 2004 Ericsson saw its revenues decline 52 percent from pre-fire levels. The face of the mobile phone industry had changed forever, all because of a fire that had been contained in ten minutes.
Dr. Amit S. Mukherjee, who conducts executive education seminars for C-level executives of major companies such as ConAgra, Johnson & Johnson, and Kraft, has studied why some companies, such as Nokia, can survive crisis. In fact, Dr. Mukherjee’s book, The Spider’s Strategy: Creating Networks to Avert Crisis, Create Change, and Really Get Ahead, draws from his exclusive interviews with top executives at more than 500 manufacturing and retail companies to look at the importance of living in a networked world -- one in which each company partners with a set of other companies.
Dr. Mukherjee says that Nokia was able to adapt rapidly after the fire because it had already created the capabilities (built into its strategy, processes, and values, and supported by technology) to carefully work with its network of partners on crises (and opportunities) that no one could’ve reasonably predicted. He says, “Just contrast this event with what’s happening in the U.S. financial industry. Despite the extensive networking of financial firms, neither executives of individual companies nor regulators have considered the importance of such capabilities. So, they, like Ericsson, got caught flatfooted when disaster struck.”
In this podcast, Dr. Mukherjee explores two things – the nature of the networked business environment, and the need to become an adaptive business, not an agile business, in order to survive or to avert crisis, to drive change, and to get ahead of competitors. He provides examples of some global adaptive businesses, gives an overview of the transformation challenges of being a more adaptive business, and explains the need for a chief network officer.
Bio
In 2004 Dr. Amit S. Mukherjee founded Ishan Advisors, an executive education and strategy consulting company. Before starting Ishan Advisors, Dr. Mukherkee was the vice president and strategy advisor for Forrester Research’s strategy consulting practice. He also was a director at Arthur D. Little where he served on two practice leadership teams, one of which he co-founded. In addition, his Arthur D. Little teams often applied his doctoral research to improve client operations and to develop new products. His other experience includes that of chief technology and strategy officer of TurboChief Technologies and a management position at American Express Bank. Dr. Mukherjee has a Ph.D. from the Harvard Business School, where he did extensive research in Europe on the use of knowledge to compete effectively. He also served as an assistant professor at INSEAD and at Georgetown University.
Resources
Amit Mukherjee’s Blog
GSK conference explores Internet, supply chain - Drug Store News
Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host
Doug Marcis - Audio editor
