Transformation

Employees of large corporations tend to quickly interpret talk about transformation as meaning bad news for themselves. Experience has often taught them so. However times are changing anyway, so it is worth noticing the goal announced for Thomson Reuters: coming together as a unified enterprise instead of existing as a portfolio of businesses [What does a Chief Transformation Officer do?].

Even the old Reuters did not really achieve that. Some of its businesses had significantly different characteristics. So now, in the much larger Thomson Reuters, all is to be brought together in a coherent whole, with the aim of “redefining the intersection of information and technology”.

We shall see. It could turn out to be some ever-vanishing chimera which will consume vast amounts of management time for not much at all. Or it could actually harm the existing businesses. Or it may even succeed. Interesting times. Let’s watch this space. ■