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Business Under Fire
Since the revival of the Palestinian intifada in October 2000, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost in Israel -- a situation made worse by the NASDAQ meltdown of the same period. With an Israeli population of only 6.2 million, these lost jobs have had a catastrophic effect on the economy.
As a management consultant, Carrison wondered how any company, let alone an entire economy, could survive in an environment ravaged by terrorism and a recession. He questioned -- from a business perspective -- how businesses in Israel were able to stay viable in such a chaotic and destructive environment. He concludes, after spending time in Israel and interviewing many business leaders there, that even with all of the terrorism the Israeli economy is surprisingly robust.
Without getting into the politics of the middle-east conflict, nor taking sides, the book shows both technology and business managers how they can deal with the most adverse of situations.
Carrison interviews a cross section of CEOs and managers from industries hurt the hardest; namely tourism, hotel, hi-tech and biotech. What emerges from all of the stories is that every manager claims that the intifada not destroyed his company, but has actually made it a leaner and more efficient organization and one that will be ready to go into overdrive when normal economic times resume.
The five chapters have the same format: interviews with CEOs and senior directors, and a checklist for managing a business under fire. Each interviewee offers his own observations and strategies on how to deal with the current situation and work towards future growth. These strategies run from redefining the market, sharing the risk, to contingency plans and more.
One significant difference between Israel and America is demonstrated by the way Israeli citizens deal psychologically with terrorism. In an interview with financial consultant Danny Halpern, Carrison asks how many people would rent office space in the World Trade Center in New York City, were it completely rebuilt and reopened tomorrow. Halpern doubts the World Trade Center would have the same occupancy level as before 9/11. But he notes that in Israel, office are repopulated after they are bombed, and customers frequent bombed cafes and restaurants as soon as they are repaired.
Another telling difference that Halpern observed is that in Israel is more concerned with the quality of security, whereas in the U.S., more is invested into the mechanics of security. In the U.S., because of the huge numbers involved, the investment in security by default is in the mechanics, and the system. With that, minimum wage workers are hired to carry out what are supposedly important security functions.
The hotel industry has been hit hard. Hotels operate with large staffs, and require high occupancy rates to break even (roughly 75 percent). Carrison interviewed a number of hotel managers who saw their occupancy rate average about 25 percent. By any account, those hotels should have closed its doors and declared bankruptcy. But what happened is that the hotels discovered many correctable inefficiencies. In fact, Raphy Weiner, General Manager of the five-star Daniel Hotel, noted that he learned how inefficient the hotel had been before the crisis and "we'll never go back to the old way. The intifada has been a school for us."
The lesson that American IT managers can take from Weiner are that even the most adverse situation can be a fulcrum for change. Those in danger of having their jobs outsourced -- a significant number of us -- can take those lessons to heart, and hope that their managers and CEOs do too.
Carrison found that every manager had been challenged in cataclysmic ways, but refused to be run out of business by terrorists. Their defiance to the terrorists led them to streamline operations, reduce staff and determine a method to ride out the economic storm. That cutting back leads to a cruel irony: the people most heavily hurt from an economic perspective are the many Palestinian workers who -- before the intifada started -- had good jobs in Israel. The severe cutbacks in many firms resulted in Palestinian workers losing their jobs as a direct result of terrorist activities by their compatriots.
While the cause of the Israeli programmer losing his job is not the same as that of the American programmer; the manner in which they both can rebuild can be the same. Nietzsche's observation that "what does not destroy me, makes me stronger" is the attitude in interview after interview in the book. There is a lot that American programmers and managers can learn from those under fire in Israel.
You can purchase Business Under Fire: How Israeli Companies Are Succeeding in the Face of Terror - and What We Can Learn from Them from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Actually it was Joel Spolsky. His problem is: he created his own company, he is successfull and doesn't need to worry about his own future. With all these books sold throught FUD, we don't know what's really happening...
Sharon is in partnership for a casino to be opened up in palestine so was arafat. That's right sharon and arafat were in the same partnership in a casino along with some european interests.
When it came to fleecing the palestenians they were both of the same mind.
How many times has Sharon been investigated for corruption anyway? Aren't there some probes still going on?
evil is as evil does
Yep. Did great back in the 40s. Didn't need our help at all. That NATO thing? Totally unneeded.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Yep, to about the tune of $2 Billion With A Capital B in "military aide", and +$700M in economic aide. $3B isn't enough- they want more for "border security" and whatnot.
Think I'm using some nazi group for my figures? Phbt. Try the Haaretz.
None of this counts the billions in defense spending; Israel makes a HUGE number of major and minor systems for virtually every US military vehicle.
Slighty sarcastic view- maybe if we saved that $3B+/yr, we'd solve two problems at once- the Israelis would get a lot more serious about the peace process, and we'd have money to pump into our own economy instead of theirs. Like, say, our crumbling roads/railway system, healthcare/retirement, inadequate community emergency services, etc.
Of course, that will never happen. Any politician who suggests cutting aide to Israel stands to be accused of anti-semetism...
Please help metamoderate.
Actually... while I've never been there, my understanding was that Israeli citizens have more legal access to firepower than Americans. Perhaps that has changed, so someone please correct me if wrong.
Another things though, is that bombers there have a willingness to die for their cause, which is hard to defend against. A full rifle rack is useless against someone who is willing to be a human bomb.
"Israelis don't have to spend hours going through multiple checkpoints to get from one town to the next."
That might have *something* to do with the absense of Israelis who strap bombs to themselves and try to blow up Palestinian civilians.
Fyi, it's only border towns that have security checkpoints, and Israeli citizens have to go through the check points, too.
Am I getting some facts wrong? Arafat walked away from the negotiating table at Camp David even when he was offered 95 % of the land from the 1967 war.
He did so because the intifada was a effective money earner. In 2002 or so, Arafat was worth some 1.5 Billion $. He did this because he cheated his own people.
You're asking the wrong people to get serious about the peace process. Do you know Jordan gets more than 1.5 Billion and Egypt gets 3 Billion odd in US funds every year?
You are also forgetting that USA was directly attacked by Japan and was merely defending itself. Its involment in Europe in WWII is a different matter, but its present behaviour detracts from any noble reasons it might have had back then and makes many people far more suspicious of them then in the past.
When Canadian courts grant Muslim Imams the right to arbitrate civil matters (it happened, look it up), you don't need to attack, you've assimilated.
A classic strategy of a bigot: to point out an element of what Canada does and then try to make it seem as it somehow is a unique example. For your ignorant information: the same rule applies to Jews (who can use Hassidic law), Hindus, Seikhs, Quakers, Mennonites, Native Americans (tribal courts) etc etc. Oh, yes, total back-bacon-eating surrender monkeys we are, us Canadians instead of defending the One and Only, True, Christian Faith (as defined by Rev. Falwell) and persecuting everyone else.
"The main problem with that idea is that it takes many years to build (outfit, train, etc) a military."
That may be true in cases where the state has no resources of its own. In the years between 1939 and 1945, Canada went from having 3 ships in its navy to possessing the 3rd largest navy in the world. In the first world war, it had over 1,000,000 men and women in uniform - that's 10% of the total population at the time. Every time it's felt the need, Canada has managed to go to a war footing in a remarkably short period of time.
... And that's why I'm skeptical when Americans proclaim that they're protecting us. In major conflicts[*], we've always done a fine job of protecting ourselves, with a fair amount left over to help our neighbours.
[*] It's more than a little ironic that the only foreign invasions Canada has ever faced have come from its southern border. 8^)
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
... and you cleverly neglected to mention that this land was divdied into hundreds of "bantustans" criss-crossed with Israeli roads and settlements, some of them completely isolated from each other, that this "sovereign" state was to be subject to israeli military "border" patrols and that some people would have to cross the border to go to school or a grocery store. Other then that, it was a steal of a deal and that nasty old Arafat was just a party pooper.
You've obviously never actually been to China in a last few decades and seen the fantastic speed at which it's developing.
:)
:)
But grasshopper - I am here
I've been visiting China since 1990 - I now live and work in the fastest growing province in the country. I've also lived and worked in both Japan and South Korea.
And all those rich locals...yes, but their numbers are almost too low to measure. If you're not here like me, and want to come over and visit, I'll be more than happy to show you around, seriously
Drill baby drill - on Mars
A couple of clarifications here actually
- the money the govt. here gets from the US is normally for US made equipments (weapons, vehicles) so actually the foreign aid is used for propping up the US armaments industry.
- the founders of modern Israel were profoundly secular. The religious mouth frothing is a more modern phenomenon due to the outstanding military success of the Six Day war in 1967.
- Historically in this part of the world, unless you had a meanie dictator (historically the Turkish Emperor, but more recently people like Saddam Hussein and Hafez Assad) the various communities start scheming against each other (Lebanon in the 80's, Iraq now....). It's a bit more complex than "Israel has a strong military, that's why the Arabs hate them and that's why the price of oil is so high".