Before there were telephones, how did multinational companies in the 17th century gather data to make business decisions?
In: Economics
Slowly. Via letters that would take days, or even weeks to cross an ocean. There was a period between the 17th century and the telephone’s invention when the telegraph was widely used. However, that could still take a considerable amount of time to get through to its destination, especially if the message was incorrectly routed or became indecipherable because of transmission conditions.
It’s my understanding that the Dutch invented modern insurance. It had to do with gathering investors to build and send a ship to some profitable colony, and hope it comes back.
Storms and pirates cut into profits, but if everyone paid a little insurance, everyone benefitted.
They discussed these things in high-class ale-houses. Later, these evolved into coffee houses, which were considered more business-like.
There’s a reason fast ships and quicker overland trade routes were highly valued. If you could get info, product, etc. in a month when it took your competitors two months, you had a significant advantage. And there was a good deal of decentralized decision making, so a big company had to develop talent and export it around the world with both a set of instructions and license to think and act for themselves locally within certain (more or less wide) parameters.
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