Equity Management: A Collaborative Mesh Network or a Siloed Fiefdom?
August 16th, 2006 by Gordon Cook
I am beginning to get a sense of a dichotomy in the way that some investment entities survey the field of telecom in their critical process of gathering information and making decisions.
[Disclosure: I am here a babe in the woods with little knowledge but given events in Hillegom I am increasing interested in learning more.]
Are there two extremes?
Is model “A” a group of high powered executives who come from successful technology careers to the investment entity and rely in a very personal and idiosyncratic way on stuffing source material for decision making into their own minds? Do these folk have a kind of close hold top down view of the field. Do they operate from tightly held and controlled information silos? Is their network for information gathering very hierarchical a single person dependent compared to the open sourcing of ideas on the web via blogs and wickis and collaborative tools?
Is model “B” the more exceptional one that JP Rangaswami has pioneered at Dresdner Kleinwort? I am sure that Dresdner does tons of top rate proprietary research that stays properly proprietary. But JP has been pushing to develop new open source collaborative models that extend Dresdner’s sieve of information gathering into open channels outside the normal view of those inside a banking silo. In doing this it seems to me that he is building a more competitive and sound foundation for Dresdner to serve its customers than the folks in the Model A business mold.
In the fast moving and vital world of global telecom, which view of the world will untimately allow the mosty economically rewarding decisions to be made? The top down siloed view seems dominant. How long will that hold out against the open sourcing and collaborative building of ideas?
Earlier today JP wrote saying that Dennis Howlett has written a serious and considered kernel for what could be a really worthwhile discussion on Project ROIs. JP concludes: “In a strange kind of way, maybe we can “prove†the value of blogging, the “ROI†of blogging, by using blogs to develop a sensible way of measuring project ROI….”
Would this be going on at a Morgan Stanley?
Which is the more sound strategy? “A” or “B”? I request comments and further education. Also if the right person would like to talk more extensively in a COOK Report interview please let me know.
Model B - intelligence doesn’t remain proprietary forever. The key is in the way in which models are executed. It’s about the methodology applied. That’s the differentiator. So having an open source style of intelligence gathering is fine because only those who ‘know’ what works can make it work. But with more data to add to the pot. So at DrKW - only JP could do what he does. No-one can replicate that. But hey - the feedback mechanisms enrich and refine what JP already ‘knows.’