The good aspects of a crisis?

Dutch management magazine Management Team features in the current issue an article about Ben Verwaayen who recently reorganized BT British Telecom and is now responsible for restructuring the french Alcatel-Lucent. Verwaayen pleads that an economic crisis is good to realign the path a company and the views of its employees. When not experiencing the extraordinary pressure of an economic crisis he states people tend to preserve their belongings and try to reclaim assets lost. Thus a crisis provides the momentum needed to make unpopular changes needed.

Verwaayen proposes the zero-based budgeting process as a means to control expenses spend in times of crisis. Zero-based budgeting questions the complete amount of budget supplied to a department for every administrational period. Standard budgeting in contrast only discusses the delta amounts from period to period, not taking into account the basic allowance.

Cutting old habits should create room for talented and imaginative future generations working in other social structures and business environments. Verwaayen advovcates for the investment in education (knowledge industry) instead of subsidies for stagnating physical industries.

Once accrued rights don't seem to be granted any more. The only thing that Verwaayen takes for shure is that things have to change which might be painful. But if nothing changes the situation won't improve. Investment in education may pay off but Verwaayen claims there's no proof for that. I would love to prove he was right.