#Coffee buzz anarchy enterprises professional#

#Coffee buzz anarchy enterprises professional#

First, the buzz at a seminar of professional service managers in which I was involved last month was the potential for 'gain sharing' the benefits of such things as process improvements and the export of increasingly highly-skilled jobs, among others, with clients. These thoughts were triggered by several disparate and clearly unscientific 'data' points.

in fact experiencing untimely increases in productivity now? We tend to think of improvement in the productivity of labor and capital like safety one can't have too much of it. Does productivity improvement hurt more than it helps? Or is this a transitory condition, peculiar to selected times and places? Will the old view that productivity has to be good have to be revisited, at least on a 'local' or national basis, in the light of the development of the global economy and the Internet? What do you think? Original Article the alternative of suppressing advances in efficiency is not within the realm of reason.' Amy Savin commented, 'I believe that increases in productivity are ultimately good for the economy and the vast majority of its members. the business community must have faith that markets will once again bring labor back into equilibrium. Chris Walker summed up many of these views by commenting, '.

it depends upon what you do with the money.'Īn equally strong set of voices doubted whether an economy could have too much productivity. As Sean Allen pointed out, 'This may be similar to the question of whether or not too much money is a good or bad thing. Still others suggested that the benefits to society of productivity increases might depend on what they are used for. We have a similar yet different situation today, as China and to a lesser extent India are providing huge capacity additions to the global markets.' the root cause may perhaps have been the massive building of low cost assembly line-based industrial enterprises. in a global economy, productivity improvements improve life somewhere in the globe, but not necessarily in the U.S.A.' Bill Donohue wrote that 'In the 20's. John van Heteren paraphrased several respondents when he opined that 'I believe that the existing definition in your article was not conceived in the Internet age. The rise of the global economy and the Internet were cited by some as being responsible for the current dilemma. ('Too Much of a Good Thing?' See It does seem to be a problem, and getting more serious.' Alejandro Ocana suggested that 'productivity improvement, 'How much more can we do with the people and resources that we already have?' and not 'How can we make more with less?''

Unfortunately unemployed workers don't consume much of anything.' Garry Emmons reminded me that 'We examined this issue with HBS profs in a February 1999 HBS Bulletin article. He wrote, 'The inevitable trap with ever-increasing productivity is the need ever-increasing consumption. Jim Noon characterized the first point of view. Still others argued that the issue relates to end objectives, not the means, of achieving greater productivity.

But many suggested that the source matters, particularly if the improvement comes as the result of exporting jobs to China, India, and other developing economies. A surprising number of respondents concluded that an economy could suffer, at least in the short-run, from too much productivity improvement. There was a wide divergence of opinion on this month's column.