Why over-mighty business model is a thing of the past

Ask almost anyone to name the two greatest industrial managers of the 1990s, and they'll mention one American, one European: Jack Welch, who created the modern General Electric , and Percy Barnevik, the cool, cerebral Swede who created the Swiss-Swedish engineering conglomerate ABB. Both were brainy, dynamic leaders. Both showed a rare ability to revitalise old-fashioned industrial conglomerates that could easily have turned into fodder for the private equity industry. And both, even more rarely, talked brilliantly. They could articulate what they did in a way few industrialists can...