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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.
They are succeeding since the American taxpayers are footing lots of the bill for Israel's defenses. They'd have a much harder time succeeding if the Israelis had to pay for it all themselves.
I don't think the lessons here are about businesses surviving as much as people. Really, if Americans had to deal with the level of terrorism that Isrealis do on a daily basis, society would fall right apart.
"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."
Would you go back to your office after an attack? No. And then they'd raze the building and put up a monument.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
This, my friends, is one of the reasons why violent actions should be used very very sparingly. Violence usually has a way of just polarizing a situation to the point where both sides are destroyed in the process. Just think how prosperous both sides would be if they kissed and made up and stopped this incessant fighting.
NOTE: I'm am not taking anyone's side. It's time for both sides to work it out regardless of the past.
If he really wanted to do a book about doing business under adverse conditions he should have written about Palestinian companies.
I find it very amusing every time I read about Americans complaining about loosing their jobs to outsourcing.
What exactly did the people of America expect from the World Trade Organization, APEC and NAFTA?
Did Americans really expect that these free trade organizations and treaties would only work in favor of the US? That the US would be able to import goods even cheaper than normal, creating virtual slave states in places like Mexico and China?
Next time the WTO comes to town and you sit down at starbucks instead of heading out to the streets in protest, consider that free trade works both ways. It's specifically designed to make it easy for corporations to find the cheapest labor possible, which pushes expensive US jobs overseas to be done by equally qualified professionals in other places like India for a fraction of the cost.
And as long as corporations only want more profit, it will keep moving this way, so just get used to it. Stop buying SUV, 4 dollar coffees and 5,000 dollar LCD TVs, reduce your lifestyle to something more modest and take a salary cut or live with the fact that the American dream along with it's capitalist economy is going down the drain.
Personally I couldn't be happier this is happening, but it's irritating to see a country be so naive and ignorant about the mess it created all by itself.
-- Leo Utskot