In America half the airlines seem to be in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, while in Europe they are being bailed out by governments – not ideal for asking people to entrust their savings with you.Yet Branson managed to re- invent air-travel, partly by offering first-class space at business-class prices, and partly by making economy travel fun (well, sort of). He turned his lack of experience into a strength.At the other end of the list comes the “flying unstable” idea. Large companies are organised in such a way as to be stable, or at least they try to be. So they hire people who fit in with the established culture and they have a planning structure which seeks to avoid serious mistakes. But unstable companies hire risk-takers and don’t plan much – but respond with the speed of light to market signals. Managing the latter is much harder because you also need to identify dangers, and cope with them before they become serious.

But if you are coming from behind you have little option but to do this.Anyone with experience of watching businesses thrive and fail will have to acknowledge a certain reservation about this gung-ho, take-no-prisoners line of approach. I remember being told by a top American telephone executive a couple of years ago that there were two types of companies: those that adapted to the world and those that changed the world She saw their company as one of the latter. I was less than popular when I replied that a US phone company, however big, was not going to have much impact on the big forces that would shape the world – like demographic change or the development of the European Union. I noticed a little item in the FT a couple of weeks ago, saying that she had resigned following a downturn in the company’s performance.A further criticism is that being a brilliant brander does not ensure corporate success if the underlying position of the company is too weak.

Adam Morgan cites Nissan as a marketing success, and it did indeed do very well in the US. But the company as a whole is in such a catastrophic debt position that it has just had to sell a large stake to Renault. That liaison, incidentally, must top the league for “odd couples” and I suspect will eventually become a divorce.But the core idea that a challenger company has to use positively the fact that is it coming from behind must be right. The Internet in particular seems to me to be changing the rules of marketing in ways which we are only beginning to glimpse, but which can be summed up in the idea that speed has become more important than size. (There is an example of this “speed instead of size” principle with Morgan’s book.

If you cannot be bothered to read it, you can get its 10 main points from its website, eatbigfish aol .)Looking 10 years ahead, the big question surely is whether Internet-related technologies reduce the entry cost into new businesses, or whether they simply give a first-mover (like Amazon ) an ability to create a new global brand very swiftly. If they fundamentally and lastingly cut entry costs, it will become easier for anyone with a good idea to challenge the leaders It will not be so much a question of eating the big fish. You will not really know who the big fish are: they may simply be small fish that happen to be very close to the viewer. Anyone can become a big fish providing he or she uses the new communications opportunities.If this is right, then there will indeed continue to be global brands, but there will also be global niche brands. Anyone producing a really great product or service in a very specialised area will be able to get that product or service into a high proportion of the potential market.

The premium will be on knowledge of the specialist area.For small and medium-sized businesses this is wonderful news It will not be a question of challenging the global leaders. What they have to do is to become true experts in their particular corner and they can become a niche global brand for themselves.. FOR SOME Japanese executives the thought of taking early retirement is an unbearable humiliation. It pushed Masaharu Nonaka, a 58-year-old manager at Bridgestone, to suicide, still seen by many in Japan as an honourable escape from shame. “I will resist the cruel restructuring the company is now carrying out,” Nonaka wrote in a letter to his fellow workers at Japan’s largest tyre maker, Bridgestone, before his death last month.
“Since joining Bridgestone I have worked for my company for more than 30 years without paying attention to my family. The efforts of such employees have led to today’s Bridgestone.”The Japanese have come to expect their companies to provide lifetime employment guarantees, in effect relying on a corporate welfare state. Little wonder then that firms have become bloated, allocating money and staff with little regard for shareholders.Now, with the country stuck in recession, these companies find they need heavy cutbacksand a wave of changes appears to be sweeping Japanese boardrooms.More than 100 firms have pledged in recent weeks to turn their fortunes around through risutora, or restructuring.