Organisations selling specialist products which other companies cannot do without often suffer the least. But while some worry about companies' ability to cope with a downturn, McKinsey's Mr Lewis argues that modern managers have less to fear from a recession than their predecessors did. Just as no two companies suffer a recession in precisely the same way, so many have had very different experiences of the recent years of plenty. First, managers have become far more adept at dealing with change, from deregulation to globalisation to the impact of the internet. And while many companies have prospered over the past decade, others have not.
Many managers have experience of hardship.
Internet companies have seen their share prices plunge. Some have been forced out of business. Even large companies have suffered. Compaq, the US computer manufacturer, found its retailing strategy was inadequate to meet the demands of the internet age. DaimlerChrysler, the product of a German takeover of a US car marker, found that cross border management was far more difficult than it expected.