Why Do Companies Fail?

from the execution-execution-execution dept

Fortune (who has a website that never seems to work correctly) has a series of articles on why companies fail. They have a list of 10 different reasons that all come down to poor execution on the part of the company (none of this blaming economic factors crap). As they say it's often caused by "denial, hubris, ego, wishful thinking, poor communication, lax oversight, greed, deceit, and other Behind the Music plot conventions". Among the 10 corporate sins are personal favorites like a dangerous corporate culture, fearing the boss more than the competition, and (my absolute favorite) listening to Wall Street more than employees. However, I'd probably change that last one to "listening to Wall Street more than your own customers". Not to worry, of course, because Fortune has 3 quick fixes if your company is failing. I wonder if next year one of the top 10 corporate sins that caused failures will be "following quick-fix advice from business magazines..."
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  1. identicon
    Timaaay!, 13 May 2002 @ 11:37am

    My own thoughts!

    My ideas:

    1) It was a stupid idea in the first place.
    2) The vc's screwed me.
    3) Two words: Herman Miller.

    How many VC's does it take to change a lightbulb? I don't know but it cost me 30% of my company to find out...

    link to this | view in thread ]


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