Good News
A few months back, the world was turning on its axis. It has to be true. The PGA agreed to merge with its rival LIV.
Two insurance giants announced their pullout from California and, while not a surprise given our climate-change-mayhem from fires to floods, it’s a shake-up nonetheless. Now New York is smoke-filled, so something surely flipped. And the news portends a big economic threat in the commercial real estate sector and the potential for more bank failures next year. I’m not going to even talk about war in Ukraine, dams bursting, and the man-made (yes, I’m saying man-made here) disasters taking place there.
I was up for a little good news because none of this is making any sense to me except maybe more banks going belly-up — a product of our own making by raising interest rates (until something breaks) after flooding the economy with money and wondering why demand exceeded supply, causing inflation. Anyone remember Econ 101? This all reminds me, I must get back on my news diet. It can be so depressing.
So, imagine my delight when someone actually answered the phone when I needed to call American Express Platinum for a quick question about my latest bill. Unlike most customer service black holes there were not 55 buttons to push which led me to an automated attendant — blah! I actually got to a person — a real, live one — in two buttons…wow! Item resolved in five minutes — unlike other credit card companies who make you pay your bill in full even if a charge has hit one cycle and a credit the other. AmEx was pleasantly full of common-sense: Of course you can deduct X dollars from your payment this month. I see the credit from the store right here. Imagine — a real person offering a real solution.
And how fun it was to read a long-time colleague’s wonderful story about Wolters Kluwer (WK) in Forbes. Tom Davenport is one of my favorite people in this industry. I’ve known him since the ’90s (yes, dating ourselves, but OK…). He has spoken at our events, and we have stayed in touch over the years. Loved reading about Wolters Kluwer staying forever young.
In 2020, in a global pandemic with the world largely shut down, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nancy, for our View from the Top at the Digital Outsell Signature Event. What an inspiring leader. In many senses, WK is one of the few companies in our industry that remained “counter-trend” — diversified in its portfolio. It stayed diversified while transitioning to software-driven expert solutions in each major division. RELX stayed true to diversified roots, too. And like RELX, WK will probably have the last laugh as companies that migrated to focused-scale became a portfolio of products and profits in a mostly single vertical. Think McGraw and all its divestitures to become singularly focused on Education. Or Informa which is largely marketing services/exhibitions oriented. Or Thomson Reuters which has become a shell of itself in the years since we began covering this industry.
Do they have work to do in AI? Sure. No company gets it right all the time, but RELX and WK have used M&A to buy and sell, when necessary, which is the way most of this industry has grown and shaped itself since we started tracking it in 1998 — organic growth only gets you so far in an industry driven by GDP. Our industry often also buys new capabilities rather than builds them. They invested into higher growth areas, too. RELX in Risk, WK in Health as example, and most recently its new division under Karen Abramson, into ESG. No leader is perfect; no company is. Each has its cultural reputation that proceeds it, but I’ll take a feel-good story written by a person I trust, about a leader I respect, in the midst of all this chaos. Let’s hear it for more positive news and some good customer experiences.