Ebusiness Despatches: René Carayol on vision, on aggression, on Chris Gent

The business world is moving faster and faster. The major legacy of the early internet era will be speed. Technology has invaded all of our lives, lives that will never go back to the old pace. The new generation of young business people do not think technology is moving fast enough, while others still fear the advent of this ever more complex technology driven world.

But it is not just about technology. It is about a different generation of leaders and entrepreneurs who are more courageous, challenging, and ambitious.

This new cadre of leader is exemplified by the new economy and dot-com companies who exploded on to the scene throughout the 90s, but there are many so-called traditional businesses that have grasped some of these new attitudes and have delivered spectacular results on the back of this.

The key driver for the emergence of this new form of business leadership was the stellar growth in valuations of internet and technology stocks throughout the late 90s. The promise of being part of the world's largest legal period of wealth creation and the prospect of explosive valuations in just months created a gold rush not seen since the days of the Klondike.

Similar to the gold rush era, there have been many casualties - and some spectacular winners. It is worth taking some time to look at some of the beneficiaries of bold and aggressive leadership, which is by its nature necessarily impatient.

Only a few years ago BT sat at number one in the FTSE-500 as the largest company in the UK by market capitalisation. It had scale, financial muscle, a captive customer base, and a regulator which appeared to be on its payroll. It was inconceivable that throughout the ensuing shake up of the telecoms sector that BT would ever be toppled.

At this time Vodafone was still a division of Racal. It was one of four relatively new and small mobile phone operators in the UK. BT had pitched in with Securicor to deliver Cellnet, which had tremendous reach and advantages given its parent companies. Mercury One2One and Orange were new, fast-moving entrants.

Vodafone has since blown the competition away, and is now the largest mobile phone operator in the world and until a stock dip the other day, the UK's largest company. Orange has been bought and sold a couple of times and has just been floated again. These transactions have generated some £80bn for shareholders, despite moderate profits.

How?

Looking at Vodafone first, its key weapon has been a real visionary and combative leader in Chris Gent. He has embraced growth and scale on a global basis as his key measurements of success, and has been single-minded and aggressive about achieving these.

Vodafone has benefited from having negligible baggage and being able to hire and nurture its own fast business gene pool. They have been extremely customer facing. This has not been 'right first time', but they are good at not making the same mistake twice.

Through innovative use of novel financial instruments they have built the financial resources to go on a not-before-seen acquisition run that has seen them dwarf their competitors. This has made them the talent magnet of the sector. They're unlike BT, who appear to still be only appointing from within.

Gent has flown in the face of accepted wisdom. He has attacked on multiple international fronts. Change has not been something to fear.

His company is very comfortable partnering on many fronts, as long as this delivers the returns and growth that such a large organisation will need to satisfy shareholders.

They have grown their infrastructure with some slick deals utilising experts via strategic alliances and partnerships, very different from the old school of 'we only make, we never buy - no one can do this better than us'. In the new world of business, building everything yourself just takes too long, and most organisations do not have the requisite talent or leadership to do it all.

An essential plank of fast businesses is the ability to be 'virtual'. That means not owning all elements of the production process or supply chain, and being not just comfortable with this approach, but able to utilise it as a key part of one's armoury.

What really separates Gent from his competitors is his courage and his desire to embrace risk in a manner that many of his fellow leaders in this sector just cannot imitate. His stealth attack on Mannesmann was a lesson in eyes-out assault and the nerve to deliver despite the cynicism of old world pundits.

As we head towards deciding silicon.com's Agenda Setters 2001 poll, I know who gets my vote!