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Introduction Unit of One  Fast Co. Zines   Check out Fast Company co-founder Alan Webber's trailblazer page Read other interviews Does the Size of a Corporation Matter? Edited by Anna Muoio Is the size of a corporation really important to its success? Will these megacorporations really work and succeed over time? Who will want to work with them? And will they work for us - what does this new cast of corporations mean for business and society? Influential thinkers give their takes on the rise of the megacorporation and their effect on business as a whole. Clive Meanwell President and CEO The Medicines Co. Cambridge, Massachusetts There are times when big makes sense. Newspapers tell us that megamergers are games played in ego-filled boardrooms by a few people. This explanation is overplayed and underthought. Mergers are not inherently "bad." Whether they work or not, however, generally hinges on the ability of the two management teams to wed their strengths and weaknesses, and to survive their bigness. What a big company's size can offer in working with fast companies is something like a "docking station" for the product, energy, and passion of the smaller company. About a decade ago, Amgen, a biotech company of a few hundred people, shopped around Neupogen, a very promising drug. A short time before, Amgen had been burned when it hooked up with a behemoth on another product. So the company's top managers were sensitive about who they were going to partner with this time. They ran an auction - the best one I've seen run by any biotech company - in which they nailed every potential buyer to the wall on one issue: commitment. They didn't want to hand over their baby to "the big guys" who would then take it out of their hands to do their magic. I was at Hoffmann-La Roche at the time. We won the Amgen bid for one reason only: We agreed to wreck every part of our internal operating proccesses, take them outside, and let Amgen rebuild those processes with us for this global product. The key was that our focal point was the product, not some idea that we were bigger and better and could do as we pleased with what we had bought. Before founding the Medicines Co., a pharmaceutical investment and development firm, Clive Meanwell (clive.meanwell@themedco.co) was senior vice president of development and operations at Hoffman-La Roche. Back to Unit of One Copyright © 1999 Fast Company. All Rights Reserved.     Decision Making Your Boss Your Career New Ideas Is Bigger Better?

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