A Long Time in Making: The History of Smiths - Hardcover

Nye, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198717253 ISBN 13: 9780198717256

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2014

Synopsis

Smiths Group (formerly Smiths Industries), part of the UK FTSE 100 index, is a global engineering company with a market capitalisation over £5bn. Evolving from beginnings in the Victorian jewellery trade, to significant market presences in the twentieth century motor accessory, clock and watch industries, it has reinvented itself again as a diversified international company, operating in the medical, communications, security and engineered components sectors. Its narrative history, illuminating the reasons for its survival and adaptability, offers useful data and information to aid wider research into questions such as the legitimacy of conglomerates as a business model, the creation and maintenance of corporate culture, issues of succession, the effects of mergers and the questionable value placed upon targeted synergies-even the role of serendipity.

The story begins with several generations of the Smith family amassing a fortune in retail, and then, following a 1914 stock-market flotation, describes the transition from family run business to the development of a professionally-run managerial enterprise. Since the 1970s it has had to face the decline of major markets and competitive pressures, leading to the adoption of new business lines, globalisation, and the internationalisation of its workforce. It now has 23,000 employees across more than 50 countries-along the way shocking the markets by abandoning core businesses and undergoing a controversial merger.

Unfettered access to company records, and interviews with former staff members, provide insights into the strategy and management of the firm, illuminating the rich culture of Smiths, characterised by the frequent fostering of technical brilliance and a cast of larger than life characters.

About this title

Review:

For historians of British business and economic history the author offers a masterly account of the transformation of a family firm into a professionally-run managerial multinational enterprise.It is a tour de force (Alun Davies, Antiquarian Horology)

Conglomerates are deeply unfashionable and if one were assembling a manufacturing business from scratch, it would not resemble Smiths Group. Yet a fascinating new history of the £4.6 billion FTSE 100 engineer, which has divisions spanning healthcare, energy, airport detection, telecoms and components, makes a reasonably good case for the business staying as it is. James Nye argues that the conglomerate nature of the company has come to its aid over the years. (Ian King, The Times)

Dr James Nye has written a quite remarkable history of Smiths Industries (now Smiths Group), the last British manufacture, that eventually diversified into everything from autopilots to airport body scanners. (The Watch Nerd)

About the Author:

James Nye's first career was in finance and commerce, followed by a PhD in financial history at King's College London, where he holds a visiting fellowship in the Institute of Contemporary British History. He is also an award-winning historian of technology, with a focus on the history of distributed accurate time. James sits on the council of the AHS, and the editorial advisory panel of Antiquarian Horology. He is a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, and was the founder and principal sponsor of The Clockworks, a unique London museum, workshop, and library dedicated to the history of electrical timekeeping (www.theclockworks.org).

About this edition

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0198717253
• ISBN 13: 9780198717256
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 438