I am writing in response to the report 'No reformasi needed: Umno president' (June 21). In Malaysia, big organisations often invest in new technologies that transform the world, but they have a structural problem that is almost impossible to solve. When new technologies come along, the old firms need to destroy themselves in order to save themselves. Malaysian organisations must cannibalise themselves, but they cannot.

New organisations have the great advantage of not having to destroy themselves to save themselves. Take, for example, Intel and IBM. When the microprocessor allowed the personal computer to replace the mainframe as the dominant growth market in the computer industry, the old industrial leader fell off the cliff and the new leader (Intel/Microsoft) emerged. IBM understood the new technologies and wanted to compete but could not destroy the old mainframe business to build the new. The 'Intel Inside' logo is on every PC that I have seen. I won't be surprised that we will have those logos on our Proton cars one day.

The same need to cannibalise and reinvent oneself also occurs at the national level. As we have seen, Britain could not shift to the German model in the second industrial revolution.

Japan is a good illustration of the cannibalisation problem. Japan become a master at the second industrial revolution's economic game after World War II, but in the 2000s, it has demonstrated tremendous weakness in playing the game in an era of man-made brainpower industries. Japan has to create a new industrial system and thus far has been unwilling to do so.

It is too early to say that it will make a necessary transition with a new commander at its helm, but it is safe to say that Japan is struggling.

Globalisation will lead to more business travel, but video conferencing will lead to less business travel. Which effect will dominate? Does the world really need more or less hotels, airports, airlines and taxis? Is the government's huge spending of billions on the KLIA seen as viable now? How would an investor decide?

With economic globalisation, national governments will lose their abilities to control their own economies. By adopting legislation in 1998 to isolate and control national capital market to stop the activities of international speculators, the prime minister posed an interesting test of how far government powers have diminished.

Did Dr Mahathir Mohamad really succeed in cutting off the activities of international currency speculators or what he fondly calls 'penyagak wang'? Can he really stop financiers from taking their money out of the country? Or will the global financial market cut Malaysia off from the funds and the technologies she needs to develop?

It is a well-known principle among central bankers and finance ministers that if you are planning to devalue your currency, you must deny that you have any intention of doing so. Our economy experienced a period of fear and uncertainty in early April due to the issue of the ringgit peg which resulted in a depressed market.

Successful organisations must be willing to cannibalise themselves to save themselves. They must be willing to destroy the old while they are still successful if they wish to build the new before it is successful. If they won't destroy themselves, others will destroy them.

Hello, Umno?