Tough Calls That Paid Off

BNET has a look at five companies that made good calls and are reaping the benefits in the downturn. The two most interesting ones are Hudson City Bancorp and Clorox. You can't go back and follow in their footsteps, but it's instructive to see how Hudson avoided the subprime mess, and Clorox went green.

The Apple vignette is most useful as a cautionary tale -- companies need to respond quickly when competitors attack. CVS looks like it would be a good case study in how to manage acquisitions, but this piece is not a case study. The jury is still out on Home Depot's strategy shift.

Michael Fitzgerald

Michael Fitzgerald writes about innovation and other big ideas in business for publications like the New York Times, The Economist, Fast Company, Inc. and CIO. He’s worked as a writer or editor at Red Herring, ZDNet, TechTV and Computerworld, and has received numerous awards as a writer and editor. Most recently, his piece on the hacker collective the l0pht won the 2008 award for best trade piece from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. He was also a 2007 Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellow in Science and Religion.

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