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Ex-General Meir Amit, onetime head of Israel's intelligence service, last year took charge of Koor Industries, which is owned by the giant labor federation, Histadrut, and accounts for one-fifth of Israel's industrial production, spanning into steel, cement, tires, electronics, chemicals and glass. He found that Koor was a "collection of little empires"; it had no fewer than 34 managers, who were often slow to exploit foreign technology. Amit consolidated five metal-working plants into a single division, merged two chemical plants, centralized headquarters functions and dropped unrewarding products. He also added a flat 10% to everyone's sales targets, and expects to double Koor's annual sales of $200 million by 1974.
Second Careers. It was quite natural that government-directed industries turned first to the army. Israel's military is a meritocracy of men who are accustomed to leadership, large-scale administration and organization and the uses of new technology. The first computer in Israel, for instance, was owned by the army. Top officers are unusually well-prepared to take up a second career, unlike their U.S. or British counterparts, who often wind up as mere corporate figureheads. The military policy of retirement at age 40 to 45 is designed to ensure both rapid promotion in the army and a cadre of experienced administrators in civilian life.
Often the army provides the best education that young Israelis can get. Israel Electric's Pelled, for example, was sent by the army to Paris' Ecole Supérieure de Guerre, and then to Hebrew University of Jerusalem to study economics and political science. The present chief of staff, Chaim Bar-Lev, is a graduate of Columbia's School of Business Administration, as are a dozen other senior officers. Israel's ex-officers also enjoy the rare advantage of being genuine national heroes, and young Israelis relate to them far more than to civilians of the same generation. Their initial success guarantees that the country will rely more and more on the military to provide managers. To help supply some more of them, Tel Aviv University recently opened a graduate school of business administration. Its acting dean, Dr. Ze'ev Hirsch, is the first to admit that "the army is the best business school in the country."