Right now Americans are living in the midst of the worst financial period since the Great Depression. If you can find 10 Wall Street pundits, you’ll likely find 10 different opinions as to where we are headed and more importantly, how we got here. But no matter the talking head’s opinion one thing is for certain, the lion’s share of the blame for our current national financial predicament is based on one single problem… shitty business decisions.

This brings me to my favorite subject, something I often like to discuss at cocktail parties or with random MBA’s. What I like to call… The Single Worst Business Decision of all time.

NEW COKE

Throwing the Baby out with the bathwater!

In the early 1980’s the world’s leading soft-drink manufacturer, The Coca-Cola Company, was dealing with true corporate adversity for the first time in 100 years. Having enjoyed a 52% market share since WWII, in 1982 market share had dropped to a mere 24% . In fact, Pepsi-Cola was outselling Coca-Cola in supermarkets, leaving Coke to hold its edge only in Fountain Sales.

"People like how Coke tastes? Well what if we change that? Now THAT'S thinking out side of the bottle!"

New CEO Roberto Goizuetahad made the determination that nothing was sacred and the corporation could take any steps necessary to reestablish market dominance, and boy did he! . On April 23rd, 1985 The Coca-Cola Company devised a drastic marketing ploy; they would reinvent the formula and taste of their flagship soda. The maneuver was aimed at curtailing a loss of market share to rival Pepsi-Co. And boy did he! He reinvented Coke. 25 years later it’s still fun to say… he changed the formula so that the taste of a 100 YEAR OLD SOFT DRINK WOULD BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!!! I mean, I could see tinkering with the formula and introducing a new product, but they threw the baby out with the bathwater. It was as if they had plumbing problems in the bathroom and decided to level the entire house as a solution.

Certainly they had their reasons, among them: problems with bottlers rejecting the idea of an additional product (Diet Coke had recently been introduced) and the possibility that an additional drink like would only further dilute the market share issue at the heart of the matter.

Facepalm - The Ultimate display of Business Decision Regret

Nonetheless, they proceeded with the roll out. Hindsight tells us that consumers rejected the taste of the New Coke product, when in reality this isn’t entirely true. What is more relevant to the failure is the fact that the company dispensed with the old product entirely, leaving those who had become loyal consumers with no viable alternative but to accept the new product or reject the company entirely. After a tumultuous period of 3 months, the Coca-Cola Company ultimately reincorporated the old product as “Coca-Cola Classic.” The new Coke product retained the name “Coke” until 1992 when it was re-branded “Coke II.”

Ultimately, what is considered to be one of the Worst Business decisions in American Corporate History ended up being a fortuitous event for the company. While the original plan to regain market share by making a sweeter Coke to compete with Pepsi had backfired, the end effect was still the same.  It was dumb luck that saved Coke, not shrewd and well planned business maneuvers.  This decision could make for it’s own course in Business School.  “The Best Demonstration of what NOT to do in Corporate Strategery.”

When you think of the 80’s you probably think of Shoulder pads on women and women’s hair on the men. But when I think of the 80’s I think of the Reagan Administration and America’s love of corporate wealth. Nowhere is this period more clearly illustrated than on film.

The 80’s gave us some of the best stories of protagonists trying to get their hands on the brass ring, no matter what the cost. It was the age of greed and boy was it fun. So without further adieu, I present to you the very best of the Business Films of the 80’s.

While the 90’s ushered in the birth of Grunge and ‘Generation X’, corporate greed still had it’s place in film. While not as overt, some of the themes still lingered on.

1. THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS:

Nothing say’s 80’s like Michael J. Fox, cheesy music and corporate America. Climbing your way to the top while sleeping with your Aunt. God I miss the 80’s. Not that I wanted to have sex with my Aunt or anything.

2. RISKY BUSINESS:

There was a great part of this that spoke to me when I was in Junior Achievers as a teenager. It takes a truly keen business acumen for a teenager to monetize the situation presented to him; turning his empty house into a brothel catering to rich high school student. He got accepted to Princeton and got one over on Joey Pants as a pimp. Talk about a future CEO in the making.

3. WALL STREET:

“Greed is good…” The sentence that most clearly and succinctly wraps up America of the 1980’s. This role won Michael Douglas an Oscar as “Gordon Gecko” a Wall Street tycoon bent on market domination at any cost or method. And this monologue is the reason he won. Check out the scene in “Boiler Room” where Vin Diesel and Giovani Ribisi watch his speech… art imitating art imitating life.

4. WORKING GIRL:

It’s not always the men who make the business film. Take Melanie Griffith. “I have a head for business and a bod for sin.” One of the only true films about breaking the ‘glass ceiling’ in business. That it came out in the 80’s speaks to it being ahead of time.

5. GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (NSFW)

It’s tough to top Michael Douglas as Gordon Gecko, but if anyone is up to the task it is Alec Baldwin in “Glengarry Glen Ross”. “Cause’ you drove a Hyundai to get here, I drove an $80,000 BMW… THAT’S my name!” It doesn’t get any better than that.

6. BOILER ROOM


This movie is missed by a lot of people, but at the time it was made it was a “who’s who” of young actors. It’s a nice character study of the cost on a person when business ethics and legality are thrown out the window. The first video is Ben Affleck’s (somewhat lame) attempt to channel Alec Baldwin. Not the best, but you get the idea. The second… well read “Wall Street” above.

7. JERRY MAGUIRE

One of the only films on the list to discuss the flip side of Business Ethics. What happens when heart trumps greed? Everyone remembers the lines “Show me the money!” and “You had me at hello.” But to me the true sentiment of the film is wrapped up in what the Copy Store clerk says when he prints Jerry’s ‘Mission Statement”… “That’s how you become great, man. Hang your balls out there!”

8. OFFICE SPACE

No film has ever captured the mundane and soul crushing nature of working in a midlevel business. Mike Judge’s film was a box office bust but became a cult-classic on DVD. The reason? Because it so perfectly captures the nuance and monotony of working in a cube. It is easily one of the most personally relatable films of all time… because you feel like you’ve met a version of each of the characters before and you’ve known the horror of the “PC Load Letter” error!

9. THE INSIDER (NSFW)

Featuring the rare ‘subdued’ performances of Al Pacino and Russell Crowe, this film was comment on the class-actions against a great number of big business firms of the 90’s… most notably Firearms and Big Tobacco. A great view of how true it is that when money is that big, nothing is too evil for a corporation to consider, even the deaths of millions of consumers.

10. STARTUP.COM

Ok so technically speaking, it’s 2001. But I had to include at least one documentary, especially one that encapsulates the ‘dot-com bubble burst’ of the late 90’s. A riveting film that shows how truly enticing and dangerous the new frontier of .com business was in the 90’s.

An online business degree is a business degree that can be earned through an Internet-based education program. Online business degrees are very similar to the degrees that can be earned from an on-campus business program, and in some cases, there is no difference between the two.

There are a growing number of colleges and universities who award online degrees identical to the degrees awarded to their campus-based students. In other words, an online degree doesn’t come with a big red stamp indicating the degree was earned online. To further ensure there is no difference between online degree programs and campus-based programs, many schools use the same curriculum for each.