“Digital progress is not the same as real progress”
Friday, 15 July 2011
As the markets and business journalists desperately look around for some good news stories – to offset all the downbeat news about failing retailers on the UK High Street and Greece...and Spain...and Italy - they’ve turned to technology companies for more promising headlines they think we’ll relish. But, in my opinion, some knowledgeable commentators, notably Bill Bonner (who cam up with the phrase “digital progress is not he same as real progress”) are right when they urge us not to be sucked in by the hype. The dot.com boom of the new millennium and the move away from ‘bricks to clicks’ has caused some fundamental changes to the way companies operate and workers work but it seems we’re still a long way from understanding the full impact of this shift on our economies.
Bonner’s piece in this week’s Money Week makes the point that many of the sweeping changes and online launches that have taken place in the last decade have been disastrous for growth, and for jobs. He describes how in 2000 America had nearly 114,000,000 jobs but 10 years on – after a decade of inexorable technological progress and the explosion of the internet, the country has just 112,618,000 jobs.
Much of what Bonner says makes absolute sense to me and, like many others, I prefer to stick to fundamental methods of measuring success and of containing risk. Similar to many of the longstanding clients who use our serviced offices and meeting rooms at One Heddon Street, for example, I still maintain cash is king. I also believe that if you can’t tell me in very simple terms what your business does and precisely where your source of competitive advantage lies, then you’ve probably haven’t got a sustainable business model or a company that’s ultimately going to make a profit.
If I were starting out in business today (and starting at the bottom of the market is no bad place to begin) I would do the same as I did before. Take a serviced office in the highest class building I could afford and concentrate all my efforts and resources on getting my USP and my cash flow management right.
Philip Parris, Chairman, Harvard Managed Offices
