Boomer-bashing article shoots itself in the foot!
by Gareth E on 03/02/2023
A recent article in The Guardian slings off at boomers in business. However, it advances an argument that backfires badly. So glaring is the flaw, you would have to conclude the sole purpose of the article was simply to take a swipe at boomers. That presumably is to please and attract a younger generation.
"Ok, boomer" is mostly used as a slur, yet those are the opening words of the article. It then proceeds to explain that 70 percent of small businesses in the United States are owned and operated by baby boomers who ought to retire. Their methods and systems are claimed to be badly outdated, including the widespread writing of paper cheques.
Permanently pasturing these dinosaur business bosses would allow younger hotshots to step in and modernise enterprises. The author laments that a massive overhaul of businesses will be required to achieve this. Older proprietors who wait too long to hand over the reins are therefore leaving a massive financial headache for their successors. This sounds valid on the surface, but lets look closer.
One question about this analysis struck me immediately. Why is it that businesses owned or operated by these older captains haven't been forced into bankruptcy through competition from rivals headed by younger leaders? Ones who are equipped with supposedly far more efficient systems.
If the ideas, methods and systems of the Old Guard are so badly outdated and inefficient, why haven't the new tech-fluent breed simply wiped the floor with them?
Fortunately, that hasn't occurred.
We are now seeing a sudden exponential growth in data breaches of company records. Loyal customers who trusted enterprises online are suffering scary and sometimes financially ruinous results.
The craziness of a world clamouring to get online and win online has occurred at such a speed that the need for caution has been cast aside. Deceitful operators with criminal intent have been able to exploit weaknesses with ease. People are looking forward so intently and enthusiastically that they're unable to properly watch their backs. A huge percent don't even know how to do that.
We see new tech-driven businesses come and go at a rapid rate. Perhaps those businesses that were there yesterday and are still plodding along with outdated systems aren't aren't such a bad thing for the time being. They provide stability in a period of wholesale disruption when law and order is rapidly disintegrating.