All organizations do change when put under sufficient pressure. This pressure must be either external to the organization or the result of very strong leadership.
– Bruce Henderson, CEO Boston Consulting Group
To prosper, all companies are searching for the next killer product or idea. There’s simply not enough products in the pipeline to accommodate new customer demands.
Many companies learned this lesson the hard way. When products go stale, stagnation and revenue loss are not far behind. The auto industry learned this when it lost touch with US auto buyers. Or, the wake-up call to change the existing product paradigm may come from a competitor. In the auto industry, it was cheap Japanese imports in the 1970s. In the coffee business, it was Starbucks. In the beverage industry, Snapple alerted Coca-Cola and Pepsi that teas were hot products.
When the wake-up sounds, it often results in panic. Why? Well, killer ideas are copied quickly. Legal protection lasts only so long before someone copies or enhances an existing product or service. In information intensive companies such as consultancies, the greatest ideas can be replicated in months. Today’s hot idea is tomorrow’s fad and the next day’s has-been.
Life Lesson Earned: Every company has a wake up call. in much he same way, every employee and contractor has a work/career/job wake up call. When it comes, what are you going to do? Are you going to be prepared? How are you going to react or respond?