With
the advent of the Internet, and the burst of the dotcom
bubble that saw hundreds of Internet start-ups going
bust, many big and small companies are finding it hard
to keep pace with the business environment. Yet, there
are companies like GE, Ford, Corning, and Johnson &
Johnson (J&J) who survived not for a year or decade
but a century; even in India there are business groups
like Tatas and Birlas, which have been in existence
for several decades. Tracing the history of the modern
corporations shows that the EIC, the first joint stock
company in the world, survived for more than 200 years.
And, it had many of the characteristics which some of
today's long surviving companies like GE and J&J
exemplify. What made the EIC survive for so long? A
look into its history suggestsit was its ability to
adapt i.e., keeping pace with change, something akin
to modern day's adaptive enterprises.
When
the merchants of the EIC landed on Indian shore, their
objective was to sell Britain's most popular export
itemBritish Broadcloth. However, they soon realized
that there was hardly any demand for that product and,
they would soon have to return back to homeland. Instead
of giving up they stayed back. In the process, they
discovered, like their Portuguese counterpart, that
they could sell locally made items, for handsome profits,
back in England. But, they had to cope with certain
new realities: Competing with other European traders,
and competing for the trade routes to Europe (the Red
Sea route through Egypt, the Persian Gulf Route through
Iraq, and the Northern Caravan Route through Afghanistan,
Persia and Turkey). The early British traders were in
no position to dictate terms. They had to seek concessions
with a measure of humility and offer trade terms that
offered some benefits to the local rulers and merchants.
According to the book, Europeans and the Textile
Trade (Arts of India 1550-1900), "While Aurangzeb
(the then ruler Mughul Empire in India) attempted to
limit and control the activities of the East India Company,
not all Indian rulers had as many compunctions about
making trade concessions. Besides, the East India Company
was willing to persevere; fighting and cajoling for
concessions, it built trading bases wherever it could
along either side of the lengthy Indian coastline."
By doing so the company not only showed a kind of sense-and-respond
attribute (in regard to the operating environment) in
its approach, but also the foresight, which helped it
fight against innumerable odds in the latter stages
of their stay in India. |
