Are the talents needed to rise to the top in these huge
firms those required to run them?
Have you been following, as I have, the thrilling adventures
of 'Big Ed' Carter, who has been brought over from the United States by BT to
introduce their Friends and Family programme? For the life of me I can't think
why; the idea started in the United States with another firm he worked for. Why
didn't someone from BT go over, study it and just knock it off? It's not that
complicated. They're too lazy, I suppose.
Carter is 1.9 metres tall. Suppose he were like a certain
type of US citizen - as vast in girth as height. He would be a very barrage
balloon of blubber - overweight, overpaid and over here, to adapt the old line.
Maybe he's lean, lithe and magnificent, but one thing is for sure: he has quite
a name for thuggish behaviour - his physical violence caused BT's agency,
AMV-BBDO, to ban him from their premises. We should salute them: it takes courage
to do that to somebody influential at the country's biggest advertiser, whereas
it takes very little to thump people if you're built like a Sherman tank.
They have not reaffirmed the ban, because of their clients,
Simon Esberger of Cellnet, has hired Carter to start a Friends and Family type
programme and help them 'escape the industry's looming price war'. This may be
a good idea, even if it's a shame he can't get somebody house-trained to do it,
but the logic escapes me. Joking apart, friends, what would you call a scheme
whereby you pay less when you ring several specified numbers? In
Ashton-under-Lyne where I was brought up, folk would say it is about price. In
fact even in London, where they like to complicate things a little, I imagine
most people would say it is price-led. So what is Mr. Esberger talking about,
or to be more exact what is he talking through?
Here's something else I can't quite get my head round.
Lloyds Bank-TSB is getting out of estate agency. Ten years and God knows how
many millions (billions?) later they've decided it was all a bad idea and are
looking for a management buy-out. But was the idea so bad? A network of
financial service firms cross-selling to each other makes perfect sense. I
suppose not enough thought was applied to the boring details. You have to
ensure every likely relevant opportunity is exploited and every appropriate communication
sent.
These people think strategies execute themselves. When they
fail to do so, the solution applied often puzzles me. They squander
shareholders' money to buy some firm for more than it's worth. Lots of people
lose their jobs - 'economies of scale'. Things go wrong. Then the very people
they employed - who failed - borrowed the money to buy the firm back and end up
making millions each. Why couldn't they do it before? Maybe they were just
badly managed.
Are the talents needed to rise to the top in these huge
firms those required to run them? And why do these precious economies of scale
never reach as far as the top?
Dated: February 1998
Keywords: Adventures, 'Big Ed' Carter, United States, programme
Source: MARKETING Insights and Outrages, Drayton Bird, 2000
