INDUSTRIAL AGE VERSUS COMMUNICATIONS AGE THINKING  

Television networks require large expensive staffs and costly hightech equipment scattered around the world, to bring news programs to your home. Basically, they sell them once ... when you watch them. That's Industrial Age thinking.

When Ted Turner (Mr. Fonda) father of CNN, gathers news, his writers, editors and camera crews are thinking differently: they know that their show is being sold to as many as 150 countries. That global perspective is taken into account, while striving to maintain that American "look". Since Turner's organization also houses two radio networks, CNN frequently uses, the same words for both television and radio ... eliminating duplication, in gathering, editing and dispensing the news in several media simultaneously. Why is CNN now the undisputed king of global news gathering? Because they are the best and because they are very profitable. Mr. Turner arrived at the mind-shattering conclusion, apparently before others had thought about it, that if he received 150 checks in payment for the same news show, he was better off than if he just duplicated what others were doing and collected but one check. Such thinking has already caused the collapse of some news organizations. It doesn't end there. The massive disruption now going on throughout the business world is caused because many corporate CEOs, think the game is still baseball, which they learned to play very well, witness their recent rank and salary. Now not the rules, but also the game has changed. The world is now playing jai alai, a much faster game, and those top executives not only can't play it, they can't spell it!

Let's look at other recent innovations. Sony's Mavica electronic still photo camera, uses no film, has no processing costs, and pictures can be shown on a TV set, entered into a computer, enlarged to any size, printed out and sent via fax or E-mail around the world. The Mavica shoots not only in color, but records sound simultaneously, or it can be added later. The first model is selling for $300. What is that going to do to Kodak and other camera companies, or to the tens of thousands of film outlets and processing centres around the world? Can they move fast enough to survive? Doubtful.

Example two: Kyocera of Japan has been researching ceramic manufacturing for more than a decade. Their scissors and knives, currently going into universal distribution, are guaranteed forever and never need sharpening. What does that do to the cities of Sheffield, England and Solingen, Germany who have been making sword blades since the Crusades? Up until now, they have captured and controlled a good segment of the world's cutlery market? And what happens when Kyocera begins to manufacture razor blades? Men will be putting razors in their wills and bequeathing them to their sons -- and Gillette will be toast. For the past few years, cellular phones have been the latest craze. They are expensive to buy and even more expensive to use -- from 40 to 50 cents a calling minute in most regions.

Now Motorola, the largest electronic/communications company in America, has decided not only to face up to the best in Japan but in their own front yard -- Tokyo. They are selling their cellulars there today and doing very well. Did they stop here? No. They have now introduced to the world their Motorola Silverlink 2000, a Personal Communications Network (PCN) phone that operates on a much simpler concept. It doesn't require the extensive and expensive cellular network to operate. It works on the same principle as the home cordless phone. Motorola is in the process of installing thousands of industrial robotic Telepoint repeaters throughout all cities that they enter. Silverlink 2000 owners simply open their 6.6 oz. shirt-pocket phones and dial (as long as they are within the same rough range of a Telepoint as works with your home unit). Motorola has already installed 3,500 Telepoints (another 1,500 coming) in Singapore, slightly fewer in Hong Kong. The CT2 (Cordless telephone, 2nd generation) units are currently selling at the rate of 1,000 a day in Singapore, 800 a day in Hong Kong and 500 a day in Europe (in only a few European countries at the moment). The CT2 could be in North America by Christmas 92, if the CRTC and the FCC can move at even half the speed of regulatory bodies in these Asian city states.

Motorola didn't come out with this new pocket phone, to put cellular out of business, but to compliment it. But the low-priced unit, about C$600, will be the volume item. Monthly charges will either hover around $15 per month and 30 cents a call or $50 a month with unlimited calling (long distance calls extra).

These new products indicate, the speed, innovative thinking and fast action required in today's global market. Is it any wonder that 40 percent of the companies on the FORTUNE 500 list a decade ago no longer exist!

* * *

< previous | chapter index | next >
back to Main Chapter Listing
back to Home Page