A new year; a new agenda
To succeed in the years ahead, business leaders need new strategies, both inside and outside their organisations
AT THE beginning of this century, business leaders were heroes and their future was bright. They could reasonably assume that the momentum for a more open world economy would continue, with more trade liberalisation, more deregulation, and more privatising of state-owned companies. But, in a short space of time, their world turned upside down. The economic expansion of the late 1990s came to an abrupt end; much more significantly, the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 ushered in a new era of geopolitical tension. At the same time, corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom revealed serious cracks in the foundations of corporate governance.
This article appeared in the By Invitation section of the print edition under the headline “A new year; a new agenda”
By Invitation January 4th 2003
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