CONFUSED? YOU WILL BE!

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