Soda Popinski

8/12/08

I still vividly remember the 1992 Dream Team crushing every other basketball team at the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, and the world basketball dynamic has changed considerably since then.  American and European NBA players are leaving for Europe this year along with recent high school graduates with dreams of playing in the NBA but not wanting to wait a year playing in college before getting drafted.  Basketball is a simple game, and it’s explosion around the world is not entirely surprising.  Even Kobe Bryant and Lebron James have been quoted as saying that they would leave for Europe to play for $50 million per season.  With the U.S. dollar staying weak against the Euro, European basketball teams are able to offer ridiculous sums of money.  NBA players have been treated like rock stars at the Olympics, and what is a better way to prove European leagues are legitimate than to bring in American NBA players to be the face of their leagues?  This is similar to what Major League Soccer did when bringing in David Beckham.  Would NBA players really leave grilled cheese for gyros?

I found an interesting article in the McKinsey Quarterly that ties in a lot to the work we are doing here at Brilliont.  I like this quote by one manager for the article:

We typically spend 80 percent of our time figuring out how to squeeze the economics, and only 20 percent on actual strategy, without numbers to back our decisions.

Companies that are public need to work about total shareholder return, so short-term decisions are often made to help the company presently.  Splitting up a company into many groups seems to be a reasonable way to monitor each one’s value to the overall company.  General Electric is even considering selling the lighting business, which was started by it’s founder Thomas Edison.  Managers must feel that this division is not up to par with the rest of this conglomerates businesses.  Long-term projects for a company can only be achieved through increased R&D and marketing expenses while keeping overall expenses down.  Efficiency is the key.

-Amit

akooner@brilliont.com

Tags: Barcelona, Brilliont, David Beckham, General Electric, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, McKinsey, Thomas Edison

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