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Published on: Wednesday, 21st February, 2007
You can hate him but you cannot ignore him: thats what business leaders are beginning to realise today. Its a little different for politicians though. Osama bin Laden evokes mixed feelings among people in different parts of the world. What is interesting is that bin Laden is getting increasingly popular in the boardrooms and CEO conclaves of the world. For example, in the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, a CEO discussion forum spent hours trying to understand what businesses can learn from the Al Qaeda organisation: did you know Al Qaeda, technically speaking, has departments for finance, human resources and public relations? Its training programme is already well-known and it makes effective use of the Internet. It also has a very strong brand name: Al-Qaeda. The chief executive (although at-large) is Osama bin Laden. The CEO forum concurred that Al Qaeda was the quintessential networked group. And networked organisation is the latest buzz phrase in the corporate world. It uses a biological, organic, cell-like organisational structure. A small central group sets values and goals, and a very loose coalition of cells executes. The cells merge, coalesce, break apart rapidly. And even if cells are destroyed, it has very little impact on the organisation. Michael Elliott, editor-at-large of Time magazine and one of the speakers at the business lessons from terrorists session compared nation states to large companies. He said they needed to view terrorist organisations as nimble, highly flexible start-ups trying to undermine their business. Of course, he says, there is no corporate analogy to a suicide bomber, but that is not the point. Elliott finds Al Qaeda to have a lean, horizontal structure, a thin layer of management and highly successful at what it does. The group also knows how to apply the best of management strategies. The business-like organisation of Al Qaeda could be its strength but it opens up an opportunity for its rivals to attack on a different front. Now if politicians are really smart, they can seek the help of successful CEOs to take on Al Qaeda. Treat them like a big company treats a nimble competitor, said Elliott. Find their weaknesses, take them seriously and hit them hard. Undermine their brand, dry up their sources of capital.
Harvard University lecturer Jessica Stern said that while that may not be easy with organisations like Al Qaeda, but knowing that this will hurt them is the first step in the right direction. Since the mighty American armed forces seem to be struggling even to know where bin Laden is, George Bush may have better luck if he turned to say Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or even the Google and the YouTube kids who are making billions using the network strategy, to fight Al Qaeda. A thought to ponder, eh?
http://www.7days.ae/en/2007/02/21/the-business-of-beating-al-qaeda.html
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