Oracle PeopleSoft – Stuck in the Glue?
Barron’s, the powerhouse financial weekly, owned by the Wall Street Journal thinks that Oracle is now “Stuck in the Glue”.
IN THE MORASS KNOWN as the technology industry, Oracle is something of a standout: “It is absolutely the best horse in the glue factory,” says Cowen software analyst Peter Goldmacher.
Unfortunately, the glue is mighty sticky.
Oracle is currently the world’s largest provider of ERP business software. If there is a large or even a mid-size software company that can still to be procured anywhere on the planet Oracle will probably purchase it soon. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are many left out there. Revenue growth can be bought through acquisitions or achieved through innovation, new products and services customers want to buy. Barron’s thinks the acquisition strategy is dead. My hope is that Oracle can continue to thrive through innovation.
The Wisdom Gap
Back in February I wrote about the dangers of creating a Wisdom Deficit in your organization. Little did I know at the time that the Wall Street Journal had already waded in on this issue and had taken the opposite side of the argument.
…companies are looking to cut costs. One way to do that is to get rid of senior higher-salaried employees and promote younger workers, usually at lower salaries, says Adam Galinsky, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University..
Let us put aside for a minute that this strategy is blatantly illegal. Also, let us not make the obvious argument that senior higher-salaried employees are frequently several orders of magnitude more productive than their less experienced counterparts.
Let’s just see how Mr. Galinsky destroys his own argument in the very same article.
…Mr. Galinsky suggests tapping the person who has been there the longest or who is the oldest or most respected in your group for his or her thoughts. You’ll want that person on your side. “Use their status to help you,” he says.
What was I thinking? First, you get rid of the senior people with the most experience. Second, you elevate inexperienced people to positions of responsibility. Third, the inexperienced replacements cannot do the job because..well..they lack the experience. Fourth, get them help from your most senior people. But..but..but you got rid of those people in step 1. Fifth, your organization fails.
Of course, your company could take advantage by seeking those wise veterans other companies may be shedding.
Stop digging and start building
Lawrence Harvey “Larry” Brown was born on September 14, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York and is currently the head coach of the National Basketball Association’s Charlotte Bobcats. How old is Larry Brown? The math is easy. He will be 69 years old this Fall. Here is the latest headline about Larry’s team: Bobcats are playing like a playoff team. They were picked to finish at the bottom. In fact, Brown’s pre-season assessment was that Charlotte was in serious danger of winning the fewest games in NBA history.
In less than a single season Coach Brown has built a real team from an ash heap of past disappointments; achievement failures caused in large part by putting inexperienced people in responsible positions. Do we see these sorts of situations all around us today? I think so. Are they reversible? Yes, many are reversible.
Would you like to stop digging and start building? Look for people in your industry or discipline with a long record of accomplishment. Their resumes may look something like this:
…has been a college and professional basketball coach since 1975. He has won over 1,000 professional games in the ABA and the NBA and is the only coach in NBA history to lead seven different teams to the playoffs. He is also the only person ever to coach two NBA franchises in the same season (San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Clippers during the 1992-93 NBA season[1]). He is 1,285–853 in his career. He is also the only coach in history to win both an NCAA National Championship (Kansas 1988) and an NBA Championship (Detroit 2004).