Church of the Customer Blog
« The painful death of business as warfare | Main | No funny business here »
February 27, 2004
The painful death of business as warfare
Here's hoping that "business as warfare" metaphors have suffered a deathblow now that Atilla the Hun of business, Larry Ellison of Oracle Corp., has been thwarted in his bid to pillage Peoplesoft.
Oracle's style is more business-as-terrorism. Its tactics of domination, intimidation, fear, uncertainty and doubt do more to alienate than rally. With his pith helmet motif, Ellison-as-Gordon Gecko has stirred more anger and resentment against him rather than for his cause, which is clear: greed.
First-strike warmongers are a decided minority. In the culture-changing wake of 9/11 and the hundreds of soldiers killed in Iraq, positioning careerism and business in warfare terms is highly insensitive at best. On the world stage, imperialistic snootyism fuels self-destruction.
The vast majority of customers rally for companies that live by the Golden Rule, not for ones that mock and destroy them. Ellison has earned his comeuppance.
Other blogs that reference The painful death of business as warfare:
Your posting really strikes a cord with me. To me the business of business is to live life well and make a profit. Not make a profit and then live life well. I am a marketing person, and I attempt to use method and strategy in my business career. These are the tools of marketing. A strategy of the relentless pursuit of profit no matter what the consequences is not a successful strategy for the long term, in business or in life. Look at Enron. Who wants to be sitting in prison when you could be making profits!
The business-as-warfare metaphor was the directive of Jeff Skilling at Enron. I wonder if he, Kenneth Lay and Andrew Fastow wonder now if the greed and scams are worth the stress of relentless derision and scorn and now, criminal indictments?
