It's one of the best examples of what disruption really means. To me it translates into that no matter how well you prepare yourself none of your best plans will be close enough to the reality on the ground to be of much use and the size of your company actually becomes a hindrance rather than an asset.
> and the size of your company actually becomes a hindrance rather than an asset.
I'd say less size than diversity. Conglomerate aren't subject to this and still preserve a lot of the benefits of size (although as GE Capital shows... that can go badly too if not risk-managed).
Although I'd argue that, if anything, a conglomerate is even more likely to just walk away from a business that's in sharp decline rather than taking heroic measures to try to fix things the best they can. Maybe maintain it as a small cash cow business if appropriate, but you probably end up with a lot of the same factories closed and workers laid off.
The company as a whole probably makes it through OK and that's probably a net positive given HQ staffs and so forth will be more likely to keep their jobs and there's less disruption than a bankruptcy but a lot of the same net effect is still the same.
