Business Under Fire

Ben Rothke writes "In Outsource: Competing in the Global Productivity Race , Edward Yourdon examined the plight of displaced workers who find their jobs outsourced to cheaper workers overseas. The reality is that American technology jobs are being outsourced by the tens of thousands, with no end in sight. Workers who once envisioned a bright future now only see grim possibilities. In a fascinating book, Business Under Fire: How Israeli Companies Are Succeeding in the Face of Terror - and What We Can Learn from Them, author Dan Carrison focuses on a different sort of crisis resulting in lost jobs: terrorism." Read on for Rothke's review. Business Under Fire: How Israeli Companies Are Succeeding in the Face of Terror and What We Can Learn from Them author Dan Carrison pages 256 publisher AMACOM rating 10 reviewer Ben Rothke ISBN 0814408397 summary Businesses learning to cope with a depressed economy and violence can find unexpected lessons in adversity.

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.

Comments

Americans have brought much of this on ourselves

[ShatteredDream]

We have created an environment that is becoming increasingly more hostile to free enterprise. The U.S. took a real beating on the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index and yet so few Americans care. Too many Americans want benefits out the ass from the government and then complain when the economy starts to take a hit.

Here's a solution: tort reform and deregulation of the work environment. Get rid of Social Security and Medicare and make employees responsible for their own medical care and retirement. With retirement accounts it is possible to come out much richer than one would get with SS. Many of the people who have no insurance and rely on medicare could afford private insurance if they give up amenities like cable tv, alcohol, cigarettes and junk food. There are also many charities that support those who can't, but a lot of people don't want be, to pull from Office Space, "like those scumbags at the welfare office" (in this case, the charity).

Stop tossing billions at boondoggles like welfare, corporate subsidization, "public education," the war on drugs and foreign wars like the current one in Iraq where we just piss away our money and manpower for nothing and maybe Americans will cost a lot less to hire. You have a choice: the level of government services you have today or your job tomorrow. They cannot coexst because there simply isn't enough money to support both.

American tech workers, you want to blame anyone on why you cost so much? Blame the Leviathan for imposing massive costs through outrageous taxes that go to wasteful programs and massive regulations that often make no sense. Stop voting for the Democrats and Republicans and vote for people who want the system reformed.

Re:$3BN

[Class Act Dynamo]

Okay, I don't think that other post that everyone was talking about was anti-semitic, but this one certainly is. And it was modded insightful. That's just sad.

That said, I do believe we (the US) do prop up Israel. I don't understand how anyone could think different. A Jewish state in the midst of a bunch of majority Muslim states? C'mon now. It seems to suit the west to create instability by putting it there and playing the Jews against the Muslims. If you look back, there were times when they lived side by side with no problems

Re:$3BN

[Tom Armadillo]

yeah if you look back historically, the majority of Arabs were agricultural peasants, the Jews were literate city-based merchants who had trading ties across the Med and the various rulers made good money from them and protected them. It's not like there was a consistently wonderful cultural melting pot (although it's not like it was consistently awful either).
Muslims don't like minority communities too much as they are infidels. Sounds dogmatic, but that's the way they view things (whether they engage in active daily implementation of their beliefs is another thing). That's one of the reasons that Hamas has been pressuring the Christian Arabs who used to comprise a much bigger % of population out of Bethlehem over the past few years. I say bring back the dictators - at least you know you can count on them with a bit of cash!
Merry Christmas.