The aim of the study, is to review the Israeli industry since the establishment of the state until today, in order to draw lessons from the accumulated experience and try to reach understandings and recommendations for the future.
Twenty-five companies from nine industries were selected for the study, whose activities over time represent the behavior of the domestic industry. The focus is on identifying factors of success and failure in retrospect, and in doing so, drawing conclusions and finding ideas and recommendations for the future. For the sake of the study, the survival of companies that occupied a central position in the domestic industry was examined. Gathering information from a variety of written sources about the companies allows an initial objective assessment of the companies’ performance and the diagnosis of their conduct over time. In order to deepen the study, the research team met with various managers and key personnel from various periods over the life of the selected companies and traced their conduct. Of course, time has elapsed, and the subjective perspective of the interviewees affects the nature of the information obtained in this way. However, the questioning of a variety of key personnel plus the ancillary benefits of observation from the distance of time did compensate for this shortcoming. The study examined five periods:
- 1950-1967 Emergence and consolidation of the country’s economy.
- 1968-1973 The euphoria following the Six Day War.
- 1974-1985 Coping with the effects of the Yom Kippur War and political upheaval.
- 1986-1996 Exit from the crisis of the ’80s and entering the hi-tech era.
- 1997-2016 Integration of the local industry in the global economy.
Each of the periods chosen represents unique economic conditions, which naturally had an impact on the business environment in which the companies operated and hence on the way they were managed and the resulting implications for their “business positioning”. The study is scheduled for completion in 2017.
