Surface Ripples

The Downside of Modern Communications

When I started school in the UK, with my parents living in the USA at the time, communication was by “aerogramme” which took up to five days. If you wanted to phone abroad, you had to “book” the call.

Now, we can reach out to anyone anywhere in the world by voice or with a video call if they’re using the same technology or app as we are.

This is great for most.  Students studying halfway round the world from home can speak to their families (allowing for time differences!) whenever they want.  I even know one who used to “join in” the family dinner on a Sunday evening from their student room in the UK.  The family in Asia propped an iPad or some such device up on the dining table and the family could be together.

The downside of being able to contact people so quickly is, of course, that no one needs to make a decision anymore.  Need to offer a bigger discount to get that business in China?  Phone head office in London.  Need approval to increase a credit limit for that sale to a German manufacturer? Ring head office in Atlanta.

In the days of colonial Empire, communications from London to its various plenipotentiaries in the colonies could take months to get to them (and another few to receive a response).  Those plenipotentiaries therefore had to be people of considerable expertise and ability to take many of the “difficult” decisions on their own.  Nowadays, things are vastly different.  I remember reading in a book by one novelist that “Even the ambassador’s driver had more power than the ambassador.”

The motto of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in the 1980s was “Fast decisions worldwide”.  It soon changed because clients noticed that they could no longer get “fast decisions”. The reason for those fast decisions was that in pre-email days, local country managers had considerable authority.  With a signature, they could approve millions of dollars’ worth of loans on their own.  The larger the country they managed, the more they could approve without referring to head office.  So, for example, the country manager of Malaysia could approve much more than the country manager for Brunei.  Even if the loan was beyond the country manager’s limits, the system was that the proposal went to the regional head office who had a standard turnaround time of 24 to 48 hours.  This contrasted with other institutions who were often hamstrung by “credit committees” that met at longer intervals.

From “Fast decisions worldwide”, HSBC went to “Your local global bank”.  What its current tagline is I have no idea.  The point is that modern communications, whilst a blessing in so many ways, have also deprived figures of authority of much of that authority.  Decisions are taken instead by anonymous people in anonymous offices with little idea of the “situation on the ground”.  Anyone who has lived abroad and returned to their home country and tried to explain “how things work over there” only to be met with blank stares or cynical laughter will know what I mean.

How else has modern communications technology benefited us?  That news travels around the world much faster is one area of improvement (or is it?).  Another might be the increase in speed in financial services such as transferring funds.  For every downside, I suspect there are more than several upsides.  However, to be constantly confronted with “We’ll have to refer that to…” can be tiring at times.

I’ve spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With a wealth of international experience in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management.  I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website  provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.  

Labels: Customer Care, Leadership, Productivity, Teamwork

posted by William Martin @ 13:24