Based on personal experience, this is an allegory of the problems faced by Britain's biggest manufacturer (let's call it ECI) when it jettisoned its old values. It used money which it didn't have, borrowed heavily from the banks, and bought a very specific set of industries, making and selling medium-value chemicals. It all looked good on paper, freeing ECI from the cyclical nature of its traditional low-margin, high-volume market. Unfortunately, the enterprises which it had purchased were already under the yoke of a shockingly oppressive culture. Middle management were used to getting their own way, utilising duplicity and subterfuge to achieve their sole aim - that of making middle management look good, to a completely uninformed upper management. They'd been getting away with it for decades. Employees referred to their place of work as 'The Dream Factory'. This situation didn't change under ECI ownership. Instead, it got worse, as the stakes were now higher, and the top management even less well informed. The world of Fragrances, and the associated artistic temperament, is very far removed from heavy chemical processes, making thousands of tons of polymers and plastics. The latter requires very specific and quantifiable inputs and outputs. Most of all, it requires Science and Truth. So - what could possibly go wrong in the 'New' ECI... where, for the first time, the CEO and Board wasn't composed of people who'd worked their way up from within the Company?
Fearful of being left behind by new trends, a great deal of money had been spent by middle management on Molecular Modelling and Robotics, with execrable results... which were systematically hidden. To conceal the fact that their approaches hadn't borne fruit, there was attempted sequestering of successful projects from other scientists - followed by outright seizure as the desperation levels increased. Projects which remained independent of modelling and robotics were halted abruptly in the Development pipeline for political reasons. Scientists who objected were subjected to spurious disciplinary proceedings.
While this ideological battle raged, with truth on the backburner, ECI began to sink in a mire of debt, with no new products coming through. On Tuesday, 26th June 2001, a presentation was made to ECI Chairman, Bob Mullersmythe, ECI Chief Executive, Brendan O'Riley, and Quantum Chief Executive, Paul Drax. This powerful triumvirate were knowingly misled about the status of modelling and robotics. They were assured that the current development pipeline was full to the brim with materials which had originated from these techniques. The Development pipeline was indeed overflowing - with materials which middle management had killed until they could removethe scientists responsible, then claim these molecules as their own. In this book, we can unpick every lie which led to that presentation.
Having been given the impression that everything was under control, the way was paved for a 'Rights Issue' whereby investors would be fleeced of £2billion, and the final nails driven into the coffin of ECI.

Attempting to make a macrocyclic musk by decomposition of cyclohexanone triperoxide, a material with 3x the detonative power of TNT, probably wasn't a brilliant strategic decision either.

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• Publication Date: October 5, 2020
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
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• Print Length: 2,215 Pages
• File Size: 29 KB