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E.Factor
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Rise and Fall
Rise and Fall
History always was one of my favourite classes in school. I strongly believe that there are many lessons to be learnt from the past - yet we often seem to live through them, but seemingly learn nothing at all.
For a few thousand years we have seen the rise and fall of many great nations - the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese and the English. Right now it is the US that is the strongest nation in the world. It is interesting to see how a country becomes such a powerful nation - led by its people who are energetic and inquiring, as well as based on its raw materials, geographic location and structure. Even more interesting is to see how a country falls into disrepair - arrogance, lack of risk taking, greed, sloppiness and decadence being often part of mix.
With companies it is no different. Take the car industry, for a long time it has lived as a Fat Cat - no renewal of systems evening though during the 70's and 80's a strong warning came from the rise of the car industry in Japan. Then no one seemed to care of take notion of the fact that our oil reserves are finite, there has been too little innovation in this regard for too long.
You know that the end of the Shell's and ExxonMobile's of this world is relatively near. The oilfields will dry up eventually and if they do not invest and transform those companies into being leaders in alternative energy, they will not survive another 50 years.
Look at companies such as Kodak and Xerox, all dominating companies in their time, but lacking the vision to move with the times and falling behind. Even in more recent history we know companies that were not able to make it because they did not have the clarity of vision to move ahead, to be innovative - take a Netscape that went from market leader to complete obscurity. Or IBM, which in the time that I grew up in IT seemed indestructible but kept going for far too long on their success in mainframes and almost lost out to younger, more innovative companies. It however was turned round by a new visonary CEO, Gertner, who turned IBM around to an efficient service organisation.
Look also at Microsoft, a top company that seemed untouchable as far as the PC market was concerned. It still is a very important company in that marketplace but seems threatened by Google who saw a new market that was inconceivable to the folks at Microsoft.
As an entrepreneur it is therefore very important to understand that those large companies are not eternal. That they will eventually become lazy and self-conceited and risk averse. A lesson which is strongly emphasised in the market we live in today.
Dare to take risks, invest in innovation, follow your own rules and never let up. Talk to you customers and don't just camp out behind your desk. Go on the road yourself - you will always be the best representative of your company. Make sure you get people that are of a high quality and energy, don't go for second best - all these are lessons we can learn from history.
1 Comments
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Martijn Zijerveld | Apr 6, 2009 04:02 AM
Nice one! And it's true! don't get arrogant and sloppy... Keep frosty and always be on top of your game. Always nice to see that there more people who think the same :)
