Another dot-com bubble?

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Back in 1999 I got booed for saying the dot-com boom was mostly hot air, after which the NASDAQ dropped from 1000 to 200. The Economist now warns of a 2nd bubble,with private equity and big corporates falling over each other to throw cash at anything web-ish. Many of the new ventures will be great, but most will fail, due to poor understanding of whether business models are viable – which needs a sound system-model of the business.
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How firms are coping

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Mixed news from a recent S+B survey of execs. 75% say they do not need extra financial support – as I suspected – though that may change of course.  More worrying is that most seem not to be taking the correct actions, given their specific situations.

The article by Shumeet Banerji CEO of Booz & Co and Neil McArthur MD of Booz Europe helpfully groups firms into 4 categories ...

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Good & bad downturn advice

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I have commented on some of the consultants’ and journals’ advice in earlier posts, so thought I would share what some senior execs think who I’ve been asking in recent events. Here’s just a few … 

I asked for two ratings – Useful [no, a little, very] – and Dangerous [no, a little, very] – and allowed people to respond with both if they felt a suggestion was both potentially useful, but also came with dangers. Following are the most common ...

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Seize Advantage in a Downturn

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More (mostly) helpful advice re the downturn from HBR is Seize the advantage in a downturn in which David Rhodes and Daniel Stelter of BCG offer thoughts to stabilize your business and find opportunities … but beware!

Good to see the Boston Consulting Group encourage us to focus on the core business (as we should have been doing in the first place), protect product development, look at competitors’ weaknesses etc. – and ...

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