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

Re:How Israeli Companies Are Succeeding...

[swissmonkey]

Who are you defending in Europe ?

Germany ? France ? UK ? Italy ? Spain ?

France and the UK have enough nuclear weapons to wipe out USSR _or_ USA , Mirage 2000 and Rafale fighters regularly kick the F-18 and F-15's ass during RedFlag exercises, german Leopard 2 is rated as high as the Abrams M1, etc... they don't need US protection, they just decided that having an overblown military was not needed.

Re:get your facts in order

[pyrotic]

If the intifada was such an effective money earner, why did the Palestinian Authority spend over $300M on tourism infrastructure for Bethlehem 2000? That's a huge proportion of the budget to waste of a 3rd world country, corruption or no corruption, when you're about to launch a major military campaign.

The historical fact is that the intifada was a spontaneous reaction to a heavy-handed Israeli police massacre of rioters in the holy of holies in September 2000. Subsequently rioters were killed across the West Bank and Gaza. It was weeks before a single Israeli was killed. This is hardly the pre-planned uprising that supporters of Israel like to think happened to their generous offers of "peace".

Since the mid 1980s the PLO negotiation position has been simple - peace is possible on 22% of historical Palestine. Those 22% were occupied by Jordan and Egypt in 1948, and by Israel in 67. An independent state is not feasable without access to ground water, airspace or international borders. Although Israel produced no maps for the 95% of the 22%, their plan was not to create an independent state, but a dependency of Israel with borders controlled by Israel, able to provide cheap labour, but without having to give those workers the vote in Israel. The capital of "Palestine" was to be Abu Dis, a dusty little village on the edge of Jerusalem. That way, Arafat was to be able to tell his people that the capital of their state was "Jerusalem". He never was much good with maps.

Fast forward to today, unenployment is around 60% in the terroitories, it's impossible to travel to other cities, Israel is closed to migrant workers, Jordan has closed its borders to Palestinians for fear of a revolt amongst its own Palestinian population, the PA is barely functioning, and the UN and international aid are the only thing preventing starvation. In some cities Israeli conter-terror has killed large numbers of civillians and destroyed homes and farms, whereas other cities have been relativly untouched. Israeli settlements are expaning on the ground, though the US is happy with that because they can dismiss the pheonomenon as "natural growth". Ten percent per anum is the natural growth Jewish settlements are allowed, though Arab towns, which are far more populated, are allowed 0%. I'm sure it has something to do with terror, though I can't think what. Egypt uses Israel as a distraction to divert attention from its own domestic problems. Israel has swapped from using Palestinian migrant labour to using Philipino and Eastern European. Total mess. I'll be going back again this year.

I read the Rupert Murdoch piece on Arafat, which appears to have 2 sources: Israeli intelligence, and a Palestinian banker who fell out with the PA. That's not journalism, it's rehashing press releases. I'm not defending Arafat, just holding out for some serious investigation.

Is there any point posting responses to AC's?