Facit

"I chose consulting because it would provide work at the "top of the pyramid" and thus experiences from the world I expected would become mine. Bohlin & Strömberg was a good first lesson, providing insight into the strategic and tactical dimensions of business. Among other things, I conducted a study of Facit's Swedish organization of offices and sales with continued advisory services when the company merged with the Swedish competitor and calculator manufacturer, Addo in Malmö. As a result, I ended up in the front row of one of the larger Swedish industrial tragedies in modern history."

"Facit's fundamental problem was that the development people and technicians worked in a closed world, stuck in their own proud history. Meanwhile, out there in the "world," an electronic revolution was underway, of which I now have an example in my office: the Japanese Sharp electronic calculator, no bigger than a large matchbox and the first to be sold in Sweden. It was Facit that imported it in a desperate attempt to latch onto the new trend. It was a shocking realization in my young life that a Swedish, world-leading corporation could be so quickly swept off the board by new technology. It left deep marks."