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Sales rank 716,797
Customers rating (based on 7 reviews)
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Predicting that big business and government will be unable to meet the economic challenges of the twenty-first century, the author of Megatrends explains how the telecommunications revolution is empowering small and multinational companies. Reprint. PW.
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| Publisher | Avon | | Release date | 01/1995 | | Availability | | | Edition | Mass Market Pap |
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 The Optimistic Jew
Popular Futurism in the vein of Alvin Toffler, but even more journalistic and accessible. The title is the theme of the book as well as its own powerful metaphor of what is happening in the globalized world. His thesis is encapsulated in the subtitle of the book: "The Bigger the World Economy, The More Powerful Its Smallest Players". The ever-increasing speed of change provides ever smaller economic entities - businesses and countries - with greater opportunities given the flexibility inherent in being smaller. Pink talks about this in "Free Agent Nation". Naisbitt relates it to countries. It was this idea that inspired me (in my book "The Optimistic Jew") to think of Israel as a disproportionate (to its size) driving force in the world economy and to aspire to the highest median income in the world by 2030.
Post-Industrial Age of the micro-entrepreneur
Paradoxes surround us in the big/little, global/local, corporate/personal, and public/private contexts. You can find here insights for the emergence of the post-industrial global culture and economy. Because of the global integration, small businesses have even more hope of becoming successful in the future. Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
--A famous paradox in architecture that has served the profession well is "Less is more," meaning that the less you clutter a building with embellishments, the more elegant it can be, the greater a work of architecture it can be.
--The entrepreneur is also the most important player in the building of the global economy. So much so that big companies are decentralizing and reconstituting themselves as networks of entrepreneurs.
--The principle of the global paradox--the bigger the world economy, the more powerful its smallest players--applies especially to business. Huge companies like IBM, Philips, and GM must break up to become confederations of small, autonomous, entrepreneurial companies if they are to survive. Big companies and "economies of scale" succeeded in the comparatively slow-moving world of the four decades to the mid-1980s. But now, only small and medium-sized companies--or big companies that have restyled themselves as networks of entrepreneurs--will survive to be viable when we turn the corner o f the next century. Already 50 percent of U.S. exports are created by companies with 19 or fewer employees; the same is true of Germany. --Economies of scale are giving way to economies of scope, finding the right size for synergy, market flexibility, and above all, speed. ...What is going on in American corporations today is the "ODD effect" : outsourcing, de-layering, and deconstruction.
--In the years ahead all big companies will find it increasingly difficult to compete with--and in general will perform more poorly than--smaller, speedier, more innovative companies.
Create a niche brand for yourself, and win!
Individualism
1. The European Community will not adopt a common currency-not in this century and beyond-because our money, both paper and coin, which we imprint with national symbols and national heroes, is the one thing that distinguishes us from others.
2. World trends point overwhelmingly toward political independence and self rule and economic alliances
3. The bigger the world economy, the more powerful its smaller players: virtual corporations, smaller the components, communication interconnection, global commerce, the demise of the nation-state, and self-rule of individuals are transforming corporations and countries. The entrepreneur will emerge as the powerhouse of global productivity. Over 50 percent of global GDP is produced by small entrepreneurs with less than 19 employees or fewer employees. The entrepreneur is the most important player in the building of the global economy.
4. Downsizing, reengineering, creating networking organizations, virtual corporation's results in dismantling bureaucracies to survive. Economies of scale are giving way to economies of scope, finding the right size for synergy, market flexibility, and not above all, speed. Jack Welch says, "What we are trying relentlessly to do is to get that small-company soul-and small company speed-inside our big company." With following results: employee reduction of 100,000 over 11 years to 268,000; sales have gone from $27 billion to $62 billion and income from $1.5 to $4.7 billion. "We are trying to get the small-company benefits of quickness in time to market, decision-making and the elimination of bureaucratic activities."
5. As the world integrates economically, the component parts are becoming more numerous and smaller and more important. The bigger and more open the world economy, the more small and middle size companies will dominate. The more choice, the more discrimination in choice, the more appetite for additional options and the more we integrate the more we differentiate.
6. Tribes have returned. Democracy greatly magnifies and multiples the assertiveness of tribes. Email is a tribe-maker. Electronics makes us more tribal at the same time it globalizes us. Think locally and act globally. In the future most armed conflict will be ethnically or tribally motivated, rather than politically or economically motivated.
7. Asians are learning to become affluent: Ferragamo-designed shirts, Rolex, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, BMW, Giorgio Armani, Christian Dior, Nia Ricci, Estee Lauder, Bruno Magli, Tiffiny, and Sony. Paris-based Cartier opened its first China outlet with annual sales of $1.5 billion. Vietnam's most popular band sings Bruce Springsteen songs. At any time the top 10 films in any major city in the world are American made; the American movie industry has $4 billion trade balance, and earns more than 40 percent of its revenues from abroad.
8. China has 56 different nationalities and five of China's 30 provinces are autonomous.
9. Kenichi Ohmae has proposed breaking up homogeneous Japan into nine or ten autonomous regions. Ichiro Ozawa advocates breaking Japan into 300 autonomous regions, "Plans to rebuild Japan"
10. Computers allow us to organize and keep track of complexity, the complexity of having many small units-for companies and for the world. The breakup of countries into national or tribal entities is surely as beneficial as breakup of companies. It eliminates duplication and waste, reduces bureaucracy and promotes motivation and accountability, and results in self-rule. If the world is going to be a single-market world, the parts have to be smaller. The shift will be from 200 to 600 countries to million hosts of networks that are all tied together.
11. The 88 republics and regions in Russia are semi-autonomous.
12. Many people of the new tribalism want self-rule. The nation-state is dead. The revolution in telecommunication move towards self-rule. Modern telecommunication encourages extraordinary cooperation among people, companies, and countries. The world today is about the individual and not the state. Companies that endure over the next few decades will exist to meet the communications needs of individuals.
13. Individuals decide the value of currency. Approximately 22,000 currency trader determine relative value of their countries currency and buy and sell millions of dollars with their clients money and their money.
14. 2001 there were 1.5 billion internet users in the world.
15. Politics will reemerge as the engine of individualism.
16. People are less afraid to travel; many have been unable to travel because of oppressive government and with their new found freedom, they want to travel; in the US the population of people over 55 will rise from 21 to 27 percent by 2010 and their impact on travel will be greater than their numbers; this group will be well-educated and well traveled and relatively prosperious and will be looking for greater travel experiences.
17. Between 1985 and 1990, travel from America to Europe grew by 25 percent. By 1985, 27 percent of American travelers had traveled to more than three European countries.
18. In 1992, an estimated 1.5 million Americans spent close to $100 million to plunge from an extended crane or bridge overhang only to bounce back up in the air. Adventure travels has increased. "Many people feel their lives are out of control, and they turn to recreation because it something they can exert control over. Their recreation choices are a way for them to make statements about who they are. If a person is underemployed and bored on the job, he or she may have a greater tendency to engage in reckless activities as a way to compensate for what they are not achieving professionally." "There is increasing demand for tourism in which visitors are permitted to observe and participate in local events and life-styles in a non artificial manner" (Ectotourism).
19. People throughout the world want the Americanized experience, they want the image of being American, and they want the recreation brands made by Americans.
20. In 1991, tourism earned developing countries $312 billion in foreign currency. Americans want to visit Russia, China, India and eventually Iraq and Iran.
21. One in six jobs in the Caribbean is related to travel and tourism, 15.8 percent of all jobs. By 1994, the WTTC reports that travel and tourism is expected to reach 24.5 percent to the economies of the Caribbean.
22. The cruise industry into the US sector has experienced increases in both passengers and number of sales. The fastest growing sector is for passengers between the age of 25 to 40. Families with children booked 28 percent of all cruise vacations. The Caribbean remains the most popular cruise and Mexico and Alaska run as second. By the year 2000, 10 million people will cruise annually. There are 160 ships that represent the world's cruise fleet.
23. In Australia, where tourism accounts for 12.5 percent of the countries employment, 987,000 workers and $11.6 billion in tax revenues rapid development of roads is under construction.
24. We now face new era of greatly increased international communications, more freedom to travel, more international trade, and more investing across international borders. "Suddenly, there are 430 million, mostly well-educated citizens of Eastern Europe and old Soviet Union, who are now free to travel after having been locked up from more than 50 years."
25. The switch from centralized economies to free-market economies in China and India will be big, these economies account for 38 percent of the world's population. The removal of border controls between the 12 nations of the European Community; the creation of the world's largest free-trade area of Canada, Mexico, and the United States encompasses 370 million consumers having a total output of $7 trillion. Travel is now considered a basic human right.
26. Between 1978 and 1992, the yuan feel from 1.7 to the dollar to 5.5 to the dollar.
27. By using PPP, the IMF found China had produced $1.7 trillion in goods and services.
28. China boasts a million millionaires, almost all of whom come from the ranks of its 18 million entrepreneurs. China's goal is to grow 10 percent a year for the rest of the century, doubling every seven years. China's foreign trade grew to around $170 billion by 1992. In the first six years of economic reform, China raised half out of poverty.
29. In 1978, China, approximately 700 products passed through the central planning system. By 1991, the number had dropped to 20. By 1992, the market distributed almost 60 percent of coal, 55 percent of steel, and 90 percent of cement. In 1992, the government approved the establishment of 47,000 new enterprises based on foreign investment, investing $57.5 billion.
30. China wants to have 100 million telephone lines by 2000. China 1986-1990 wants increase power capacity by 35,000 megawatts. America Express has 3,000 establishments in 130 cities and the amount charged has been increasing by an average of 40 percent a year since 1988.
31. Foreign investors start with a small investment, learn the market, develop relationships with Chinese partners, let each experience make them a little stronger.
Sure, this book is no thriller, but...
Narrative is indeed the most salient feature of this book, and apparently there is nothing too exciting about it-- in any rate, that was the my impression when I first read it some ten years ago.
This time, it really amazed me: the predictions made some ten years ago are so correct, particularly the part concerning Asia and China where I live. Furthermore, when the author quoted, he epitomized.... I don't know much about Futurism, but I am not sure if analysis or theories could contribute much in a book of this nature. Anyway, had I paid better attention to this book, I could have an extra edge in my investment portfolio particularly in Greater China... And so, I will waste no time in checking out his other books.
 Author Sadly Seeking Gravitas
Naisbitt has happened upon an important topic which could have been explored by a stronger intellect to make an important contribution to academics, policy makers, and managers understanding the emerging world structure. Unfortunately, Naisbitt lacks the intellectual firepower and personal gravitas to pull it off. As a previous reviewers suggests, he substitutes trite anecdotes in place of even the simplist forms of empiricism. His thinking is simplistic and demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of the true complexity of globalization, the working of international trade, and the development of intellectual property. This work is 'People' magazine journalism trying unsuccessfully to masquerade as public intellectualism. Obviously, I am advising against reading this book if your interest in the future of globalization is at all serious.
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