48 hours. On June 13 Phil Purcell (an old McKinsey colleague of mine) “departs” Morgan Stanley. In addition to crappy interpersonal skills, his overblown idea of a one-stop-shopping financial services supermarket just didn’t pan out, no matter how good it looked on paper.
On June 13 HP began to unwinding Carly F’s ill-fated “centralization-in-pursuit-of-synergy” strategy … the PC and Printer operations will be dis-entangled. (Duh.)
On June 14 Sumner Redstone announced the splitting up of Viacom.
Message(s): (1) “Synergy” is usually a snare and a delusion. (2) Centralization is almost always “counter-productive” (Stupid!). (3) FOCUS is virtually axiomatic in the face of today’s insane competitive environment.