Comments

I have always said 'Small is beautiful' and 'Big does not equate to effective performance'

The evidence is growing and soon we will be able to tell our womenfolk those words with confidence :-)

Posted by Trevor Gay at March 6, 2006 12:42 PM

AT&T buys Bell South. Plans 10,000 job cuts, (mostly through "attrition").

Here's the story.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11684785/

Sixty seven billion dollars down the toilet?

Posted by Mike at March 6, 2006 1:11 PM

Folks look in the wrong direction and then say, "Why didn't we see this coming?"

Amen, Mr. Peters.

Posted by Liz Strauss at March 6, 2006 2:54 PM

You know it's true, I know it's true, they know it's true.... so why keep doing it?

Posted by Bob Hail at March 6, 2006 3:30 PM

Trevor - I agree 'small is beautiful' BUT 'Big can get better' if only they knew how to manage a lil' (or maybe a lot!!??) better. The real challenge is to manage / run a BIG company like your neighborhood corner store..to say in your own words..keeping it simple & NEAT! Thats the challenge BUT can be well accomplished.

Mike - Lovely article BUT too bad...its sad to note that todays' CEOs cannot think of anythin beyond headcount reduction as a cost-cutting strategy and get the company going fwd...Well, I guess CEOs have run out of ideas and its HIGH TIME Americans migrate to the other parts of the world (India, China, Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand et al) for a more secure career path??

Posted by K.Sriram at March 6, 2006 11:02 PM

Methinks I see a link between some of these mega-mergers and the GM post elsewhere. In GM's case, there's a lot of focus on cost-cutting. Most mega-mergers are announced as, "synergistic... cost savings... blah blah..." In both cases, it seems like none of these savings is going back into product development, marketing and really moving the business forward.

Next time we see one of these mega-deals being heralded, I'm going to check the publicity for evidence of how it's supposed to generate sales growth and expand the top line.

My bet is that if this is missing or unclear, the result is likely to be awful.

Posted by Mark JF at March 7, 2006 9:38 AM

Bravo Tom - and Adidas/Reebok is doing some violent hip-hop commercials - like we'll all rush to buy product to be like that ...

Been loyal to Nike [360 run shoe now] for 25 years - viva the quirky Nike brand [their tech though is unsurpassed].

Posted by Sean at March 7, 2006 9:56 AM