The Most Innovative Companies 2011

摘要

After years of making financial plans at huge companies like Unilever and Electronic Arts, Mat Fogarty realized that management is often out of touch with what is going on in a business. It isn't entirely the executives' fault: sometimes they don't have enough information. Too many realities about how their companies are doing-things the executives have to know to make smart decisions—get bottled up at lower levels of the business. For example, several years ago, employees down the chain at Electronic Arts knew that a certain video game was unlikely to ship on time. But executives continued to promise an overoptimistic release date to the outside world, and then they spent millions in a frantic race to meet the deadline. It was too late: the game came out at least a year later. And even though it proved successful, the delay hurt the company's earnings and its stock price.