“Dot com death”
By Philip Crosby
Why did the highflying “dot.com” organizations crash and burn so spectacularly last year? Billions of dollars in corporate and personal wealth just disappeared in an instant as investors and customers lost faith in the companies. Yet just before that there was convincing talk of a new economy where light on their feet, imaginative organizations could have ever rising stock prices that would fund the work. It wasn’t necessary to make money actually because the stock became its own growth mechanism. In a nation whose business world was founded on profitability this was a unique approach. Yet it worked, for a while anyway.
Failure of this industry was blamed on many things, particularly the trend to “burn cash” that used up resources. Young multimillionaires suddenly found that there was no amount of wealth that couldn’t be outspent. They had pledged stock in order to borrow money because they wanted to let the securities continue to grow. When the input flow of money dried up their assets suddenly dropped as much as 85%. They were trapped inside an old fashioned mechanism. They owed more than they were worth. It is hard to sell large houses and yachts when the market is crowded.
The main thing that brought this about should be a personal lesson to us all as we consider our careers. The dot.coms failed because they could only do one thing. They had no versatility. It was like a store that only sells one product. When a little pressure comes along customers find they can get along with out it. One site sold pet food, ordered on line and delivered to your door. Every grocery store sells pet food, and you are going there anyway. One site was going to get your groceries for you; another cheap airline tickets; another golf balls; another books. Everyone had a specialty.
Now it is you as quality professionals who are all wrapped up on one thing, like ISO for instance, then it becomes easy to face cash burn. It is necessary to have many arrows in one’s quiver; even the best of us miss the target now and then. Wherever we work there is change minute-by-minute, day-by-day. No two days are ever the same. If we walk around with one answer to every question we soon wear out our welcome. If we think that winning an award establishes us in a bombproof bunker we should look around at what happens to award winners. In 75 years only 3 actors have won two Academy Awards in a row. The Amazon founder was Time’s man of the year in 1999. Chrysler was Forbes’s Magazine’s company of the year in 1999. What happened? They kept on doing the same thing.
Managing business is a philosophy plus hard and thoughtful work. Managing quality is a philosophy plus hard and thoughtful work. Latching on to a package like ISO, Six Sigma, TQM, or something else in order to drive our career is like being a dot.com. Anything produces improvement for a while when attention is paid to it. Children get better grades for a while when a parent gets irritated and involved. These drop off when rage retreats.
Deal with the real world. Become eclectic; don’t limit yourself by becoming a specialist. Learn about life, not just about the techniques of quality assurance.