![\"Headshot](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Patrick-Daly.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNortheastern professor John Fallon, former CEO of education giant Pearson, outlines how global corporations can compete in the AI era in his new book, \u201cResurgent.\u201d<\/p>\n
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John Fallon says his book \u2018Resurgent\u2019 is designed to challenge the argument that big corporations will be made obsolete by Big Tech and other rivals. Photo by Alyssa Stone\/Northeastern University<\/p>\n
LONDON \u2014 Global corporations have the know-how and staying power to compete in the artificial intelligence age against the tech giants and startup challengers, according to a former chief executive.<\/p>\n
John Fallon<\/a>, professor of practice at Northeastern University, led Pearson<\/a> plc from 2012 until his retirement in 2020, overseeing a period of major transformation for the listed U.K.-based company.<\/p>\n In his co-written book<\/a>, \u201cResurgent: How established organizations can fight back and thrive in an age of digital transformation,\u201d Fallon offers a playbook for executives steering their organizations through digital upheaval.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea of the book,\u201d says Fallon, \u201cis that anyone who is a manager or a leader in a large company or a large organization that\u2019s going through a major digital transformation could pick the book up and find some very practical ideas and suggestions that would help them do their job differently on Monday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n Pearson, Fallon explains, was in the final stages of a massive strategy shift when he took over. It had gone from being an old-fashioned conglomerate with a diverse portfolio \u2014 owning everything from waxworks attraction Madame Tussauds to the \u201cBaywatch\u201d-producing entertainment company All American Television \u2014 to streamlining into one of the world\u2019s leading education providers.<\/p>\n Fallon says that what he held on to when leading Pearson through a \u201cvery challenging\u201d period<\/a> in its 180-year history was his belief that large corporations could be agile enough to take on the disrupters.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was analog to digital and it was a big change in the business model as well, from an ownership to a subscription model,\u201d the British businessman remembers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd what you find in those circumstances is the analog profits decline much more quickly than the digital revenues grow. It was a pretty bruising and difficult period, but I was always confident that Pearson would be resurgent. That after a period of decline, it would emerge stronger and recover.\u201d<\/p>\n Co-written with Julian Birkinshaw of Ivey Business School, \u201cResurgent\u201d challenges the notion that only Big Tech and billion-dollar startups will lead the AI revolution.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is this idea,\u201d Fallon adds, \u201cthat the companies that have been around for a long time had no future, and that we were all going to go the way of Kodak<\/a> or BlackBerry \u2014 that this will be our \u2018Kodak moment.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd instinctively my experience was that that\u2019s not true. Digital transformation is very hard for large, established companies, but if you can combine the enduring things that made you a successful company in the first place, with learning to be much more agile, much more innovative, to reinvent yourself for the digital age, then you could emerge resurgent, you could be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cResurgent\u201d sets out how large companies have traditionally been far more successful in managing digital transformation than analysts have given them credit for. Through the dot-com boom of the late \u201990s and the move to mobile phones from 2007 onwards<\/a>, big companies have proven themselves to have staying power, Fallon argues.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile AI is a massively disruptive technology,\u201d he continues, \u201cin many ways, large organizations can learn from how they\u2019ve adapted to previous waves.\u201d<\/p>\n The authors note that, as of the end of 2024, 476 of the Fortune 500 companies were founded before 1995 \u2014 long before the internet revolution began.<\/p>\n The pair highlight Disney as a case study. Faced with the rise of streaming platforms like YouTube, Netflix and Amazon Video, Disney responded by ramping up content production \u2014 acquiring Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm to secure blockbuster franchises like Star Wars. These moves gave the company leverage over streamers and paved the way for the launch of its own platform, Disney+.<\/p>\n Pearson conducted its own major transformation in order to secure its position, Fallon recalls. The firm made a \u201cbig bet\u201d at the turn of the century, he says, on the future of the knowledge economy and the way the internet would radically alter how people learn.\u00a0<\/p>\n The London-headquartered outfit was in a good place to capitalize, being the world\u2019s largest textbook supplier. The company moved from selling high-cost textbooks to offering digital courseware that could be sold at a lower price and offer a more personalized experience for students.<\/p>\n Fallon notes that the streamlining process was complex, requiring Pearson to abandon legacy revenue streams and divest significant assets in order to become more agile.<\/p>\n![\"Portrait](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/John-Fallon.jpg\")
John Fallon led Pearson for eight years before retiring in 2020 and later joining Northeastern as a professor of practice. Courtesy photo<\/p>\n