How to live long and prosper
While the majority of companies die young, some seem to achieve corporate immortality. What is their secret?
FOR most firms, life is nasty, brutish and short. The life expectancy of a typical multinational is between 40 and 50 years, which means that of all the companies now featured in America's Fortune 500, about one-third will have merged, been broken up or gone bust by 2010. For less exalted firms, life can be even shorter. A recent study by Stratix Consulting Group, based in Amsterdam, found that the life expectancy of the average European and Japanese company is less than 13 years.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “How to live long and prosper”
From the May 10th 1997 edition
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