Another Business School Trophy

[tw]

In previous discussions, defined was a fundamental difference between basic research and fundamental research.
Wanted: A Gravedigger for NASA? and
Fundamental basis of an Ecomonic boom

Lucent sale would be one last bummer
News that Alcatel SA may acquire Lucent Technologies Inc. for no premium on its stock price could well represent one final jab in the eye for long-time investors in Lucent, one of America's most widely held stocks

Lucent is the Bell Labs. An organization that was converted by MBAs in Lucent (and previously by AT&T) from doing fundamental research (that created so many Nobel prize science) to application research. As a result, Lucent Technology is so anti-innnovative that a French company - Alcatel - may now own the Bell Labs.

Where ever MBA managers control innovation and use spread sheet mentality to 'optimize' that innovation, well that is what Fiorina and Young were doing to HP. Akers and Cannavino in IBM. Its what happened to innovation in big steel and in General Motors. Principles taught in the business schools so destroyed innovation in the Bell Labs that what remains may soon become French. Good for the French. Maybe they will kick out the disease in the Bell Labs - business school graduates. Maybe then Alcatel in 10 to 30 years can revive innovative fundamental research in Bell Labs.

Don't count on it. First they must destroy the labs - massive removal of the disease. Then restore what made the labs so productive. Easier to just let Lucent go bankrupt while new companies develop laboratories that innovate.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Lucent has spun off or sold off so many of it's product lines, there's not much left.

A good friend of mine worked at Lucent in Dallas, during their heyday. He said they almost doubled their head count, all with middle management, until it bled to death.

[tw]

Why you know Lucent Technology is in big trouble. 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. Since 2002, that has been Partricia Russo. A collection of sentences from a variety of web sites provides this 'smoking gun' reason why Lucent Technology cannot heal itself:

Patricia F. Russo received her undergraduate degree from Georgetown with a degree in political science and history and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University in 1989. Before joining AT&T in 1981, Ms. Russo spent eight years in sales and marketing at IBM. Prior to 1992, she held key management and executive positions throughout AT&T in strategic planning, marketing, human resources and operations.

Strategic planning? Marketing? Personnel Director? Where once did she ever get her hands dirty with technology, electricity, communication, and other realities of her business? She did not. By definition, Russo is a classic example of an overpaid business school graduate that stifles innovation - as Carly Fiorina was also doing in HP.

Technically a takeover of Lucent by Alcatel is a merger of equals. But that also was the takeover of Chrysler by Mercedes. This image is important because so many Americans worry about foreigners taking over American companies (ports) rather than first learn why those takeovers are necessary. What percentage of science and engineering degrees are held by American? Barbie said it best. Math is hard. Funny. That is also what a certain American president says to make us think he even reads his memos.

85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management - who like George Jr, Rick Wagoner of GM, and Anthony Alexander of 1st Energy (who created the NE blackout) - all don't come from where real work is performed. They are, instead, graduates of business and law schools.

[Trilby]

Waaait a sec--are you saying that Business School is NOT the way to go?

(Need emoticon for emotional devistation)

[tw]

Originally Posted by Brianna

Waaait a sec--are you saying that Business School is NOT the way to go?

B-school is as necessary as a Rolex watch in order to succeed - which only means get rich - by any means possible. Every so often, some may get too rich and then are prosecuted - Enron. Japanese best define the initials MBA - Made for Being in America.

BTW, I had both a Rolex watch and a TI LED watch. The Rolex failed often. TI LED watch was made obsolete - it did not fail. This cannot be true when using B-school spread sheets since a Rolex cost tens of times more money. Therefore I must be lying.

[elSicomoro]

Did I mention that I'm considering getting my Ph.D. in business next year?

[Trilby]

um..does this mean that tw is in desperate need of a watch?
coz if it does, I am soooo in.

[Elspode]

Wait a minute...this is the New Millenium. The *only* reason for doing anything is to make as much money as fast as possible off of whatever you have at hand. Existing technologies, trees, oil, third world nations...use 'em up, pocket the cash, and the hell with anyone else's future.

"He who dies with the most toys wins" should be printed on our money.

[busterb]

Ya got it!

[Mundane Gorilla]

Originally Posted by Elspode

"He who dies with the most toys wins" should be printed on our money.

Don't give them any bright ideas.

Hi, Mundane Gorilla! What an amusing user name! Did you pick it just to tick Urbane off?

As far as what should be printed on our money, I think "My Precious" should suffice.

With all due respect to my friend, Sycamore, I have never understood the purpose of a business degree. When I was but a lass getting my Master's degree in library and information science ( a fancy name for library school), we had to take several classes from the college of business as part of the requirement for the degree. I was never so bored in my life! The class in management, especially, ticked me off with its over-all stupidity. When I finally rose in my career to the point where I was managing my own small library, I just let people do their jobs. It worked beautfully. I assumed that the staff was there for the same reason as me - that they simply loved books. I wasn't going to manage anyone else's love affair. I managed the budget - ie bought books and periodicals and didn't spend more than what our budget allowed and did the reference desk work. The shelvers shelved, and the catalogers cataloged, and I snuck cigarettes on the loading dock with the janitor at break time. What the hell does anyone need a degree in management for?

[xoxoxoBruce]

I read a book called "The Cola Wars - The Other Guy Blinked" written by the former Pepsi CEO.
As he ticked off the "strategic" decisions he'd made, they all seemed like no brainers to me.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I read a book called "The Cola Wars - The Other Guy Blinked" written by the former Pepsi CEO.
As he ticked off the "strategic" decisions he'd made, they all seemed like no brainers to me.

I sometimes read business books. In other cases, I collect them as oddities, like buying the diet book of a celebrity who died from an eating disorder, which I could but did not do. (points to anyone who can name the book/author)

One book of interest is "Prophets in the Dark", by a business consultant and the CEO of Xerox in the 1980's. It is all about beating back Japanese competition in Xerox's core business.

Former Xerox CEO Kearns and business consultant Nadler here relate how Xerox marketed the exclusively patented plain-paper copying machine into a billion-dollar business in the 1960s, then became complacent and fell monumentally behind world competition by the early '80s. But under Kearns's leadership and a successfully executed program of product and service quality, Xerox became "the first major American company targeted by the Japanese to regain market share from them."

I don't know if there is anything in that book about giving up a dozen or more of the most influential patents related to personal computers and the Internet that would have been worth hundreds of billions of dollars, which Fumbling the Future addresses.

Of course, "Prophets" is selling for as little as $.01 and "Fumbling" is selling for about $18, so it looks like market forces really do work.

Actually, service and quality are important concepts, but considering the elephant in the room, I think that Kearns should have written the "Fumbling" book instead.

[tw]

Its no accident that John Akers of IBM - who coined the expression 'computer literacy' - could not use a computer. Aker's was a classic MBA. He was most computer illiterate. In 1991, his own IBM corporate offices only had 1983 IBM XT computers with CGA monitors. That's an original 1981 IBM 8088 PC with a hard drive. We know how Akers nearly destroyed IBM. He used business school techniques.

A commentary from RichLevy's "Fumbling the Future" citation all but says where MBAs were in highest concentrations:

In 1984 we did an internal survey of middle and upper management regarding use of the applications for the Star/Distributed Net. It found that while 76-percent of first and second level management used these applications on a daily or multiple-weekly basis, less than 10-percent of upper and executive management did so (the figure was under 5-percent on returns from Rochester and Stamford). Is this evidence of knowledge or having the "best intentions"? Those of us who did have the knowledge of the potential benefits were in middle management and could see those benefits to our own organisations at that time. We reported on these benefits, talked about them, begged people to come and see for themselves...for years...nothing happened.

Fortunately Apple Computer rescued Star from Xerox to create MacIntosh. MBAs are taught to be so anti-innovative as to not even understand the advantages of a Mac. Classic symptoms of business school management. "Fumbling the Future" had long been 'must read' for anyone who learns business from reality.

[tw]

From the BBC of 2 Apr 2006:

Alcatel and Lucent agree to merge
French phone equipment maker Alcatel has agreed to merge with US firm Lucent Technologies, creating a company with sales of 21bn euros (£15bn; $25bn).

The merger will take place via a stock swap, though Alcatel shareholders will control 60% of the new company