Chapter 152 What business needs is the world's current information

Not only Welch, but most executives in the world are well aware of the changes described above. Welch now serves as an independent director (that is, outsiders serve as company directors) of several companies, so he will continue to obtain a lot of new information.That's why he's taken on a number of independent directorships, although some of them he's not very good at (Welch says).He often says things like "currently...", "the trend is...", and no one knows more about the latest information and latest topics than he. But not all the latest information is about the network society, I hope you will not misunderstand this point.

For example, "The World of Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions", executives of world-renowned banks before the financial crisis would learn about corporate mergers and acquisitions around the world in the first place.Of course, as a kind of accumulation of knowledge, although I try my best to track down the relevant information, the information I get cannot be compared with the information they get. There is a famous person in this world named Joseph Pereira.He worked at First Boston, later founded Wasserstein-Pereira, and later served as vice chairman of Morgan Stanley investment bank.

He comes to Japan once a year, and we will have a meal together.I was amazed to learn all the cases he had already mastered.It stands to reason that if you are in the United States, you can have information about the United States, but if you are not in Japan, you generally cannot have information about Japan. But this is not the case for him. He has information about all cases in the world. However, I also feel complacent because he knows as much as he does, and we both feel like "you can do it" to each other.We used to compete to see who knew better until we were both exhausted.

This was when Daimler dropped Chrysler.Immediately after I said "Nissan should buy Chrysler," he said "I think so," and then he laid out the pros and cons of doing so and all the possibilities. He has a detailed understanding of Japanese cases, such as the TAG Heuer and Pentax cases, and he also has a good grasp of the vertical and horizontal alliances of European companies that the Japanese are not good at. Since 2008, corporate mergers and acquisitions have gradually decreased. There are about 10 cases a week in the world. If you understand it carefully, you should know it.In fact, as long as you know the behavior of the enterprise, you can grasp it to a certain extent.

Having said that, business activities conducted in the world-wide financial system will constantly generate new information.In the past, it was enough to know the mergers and acquisitions of domestic enterprises, but now, because the mergers and acquisitions of multinational enterprises will bring greater profits, such cases have also increased. The reason why financial experts in Europe and the United States also seek my opinions is because I can not only grasp the entire case, but also analyze it from different angles such as the background of traditional culture, the difference in business terms, and the trend of the Internet world.

Because although they can grasp the whole case, they don't know much about the general situation of Japan, China, South Korea and other countries. They asked, "Omae-san, what do you think about this?" Even so, when I was talking to them, I felt "well done" to them. Knowing the current information of the world is not a quality, but for modern businessmen, it is a necessary information arm. To put it simply, it is like "new clothes".