John Kay

Is there such a thing as a business genius? It is a moot question this month, because in modern times Apple’s Steve Jobs, who died last week, was probably the individual with the strongest claim to that title.

If the winner of the competitive race is the company that is most innovative, not in productive efficiency or customer service, but in the ingenuity and opacity of its tariff structures, consumers will not be happy, or well served, in the long run.

I have always found it hard to interest people in measurement issues, but the way we record things in business and finance has a large effect on what people do.

Failure is intrinsic to the market economy: but the legitimacy of capitalism depends in part on how it deals with the consequences of such failure.

When corporations’ main assets are intangible, the location of their profit is still more difficult to pin down. A Swiss corporation discovers a drug at its research lab in England, manufactures it in Belgium and sells it in the US.

As the commercial market is being transformed, anyone who thinks that the policy challenge is to restrict internet piracy has missed the point.

Crime often depends on a state of mind. An individual can be dishonest, or intend to kill. But to attribute these characteristics to a business, as distinct from the individuals in a business, is a metaphor too far.

When an industry model is broken, the best business strategy may be to manage its decline.

People in the middle of events often know less about them than those watching from the outside, which is why interviews with senior business figures inform us about what these people think rather than what is happening.