A bump in the road
April 11, 2008
The U.S. economy is in a recession. The financial mortgage and housing markets continue to decline, affecting many other markets as well. Global inflation is in excess of 6% with food riots in Egypt. Imported oil is selling for more than $100 a barrel. Several Asian countries continue to build their R&D infrastructures at rates nearly triple that of the U.S. And skilled staffing shortages continue to increase.
With all of this gloom and doom, you’d think that the mood in the U.S. R&D community would be depressed. But it’s not. Outside of the pharmaceutical industry, most technology organizations are maintaining their staffs, their R&D operating budgets, and their upbeat attitudes that this economic downturn will be short-lived and that growth, albeit slower, will resume in 2009.
One of the drivers of this positive economic growth attitude is the continuously increasing rate of technology growth. Everything about technology continues to accelerate: computers increase in performance, telecom increases in speed and bandwidth, materials shrink in size and increase in performance, and instrumentation continues to improve in performance, ease of use, and value. Many of these factors are driven by the increasingly global nature of our world.
Globalization has created very aggressive new competitors and opened entirely new large markets. It’s also had its share of pitfalls as product safety issues have emerged. The new competitors have been a kick in the pants for U.S. manufacturers as they reevaluate their strategic plans and product lines. The larger markets have also brought an awakening to the nuances and troubles of marketing on a global basis. And safety issues have brought home the inherent problems associated with lowest cost suppliers.
Many writers look at all of these events and point to the decline of the U.S. as a technology leader. I offer the other side and point to the challenges and how Americans have traditionally risen to the challenge and succeeded. As George C. Scott in Patton says “Americans love to fight. When you were kids, you all admired the champion, the fastest runner, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time.”
And as Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge said in a similar tone, “We’re Marines. We’re paid to adapt, to improvise.”
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