Reforming Corporate Structures: Integrating Reticular Reasoning and Tight Flows

The main difference between the modern era and the period immediately following the Second World War is that not all of the goods and services being produced today will necessarily find purchasers. In the past, shortages forced people to wait a long time before they could finally receive, say, the car of their choice or the household appliance they wanted. Since the 1970s, these needs have been largely satisfied in industrialized countries with solvent populations. This has had the effect of intensifying competition among suppliers offering an ever-greater variety of cheaper and better-quality goods and services — which is why the credo price, quality and variety has become so important in companies’ daily lives. In reality, suppliers have been the main drivers behind this variety and quality agenda, much more than consumers have been. Suppliers try to use quality, and especially variety, to gain market share from their competitors. Customers did not ask the world’s three leading detergent manufacturers to come up with more than forty brands featuring almost identical levels of performance. Neither did the hypermarkets, which complain that an enormous amount of shelf space is being used up by products that are extremely similar in nature. Attributing responsibility for greater variety (and to a certain extent, higher quality) to suppliers instead of consumers has a philosophical and political significance that is akin to expressing praise for individuals or for individualism.