In his recent article, Ken Doctor analyzes the slow disappearance of familiar brands such as Kodak, Sears, and various newspaper companies. These examples all illustrate the fact that “brands decay” and that “disruption doesn’t happen just once.”
His “lessons learned” include:
- Instead of trumpeting your own horn, spend the time to address future disruptive forces.
- Cutting costs does not equal innovation.
- Constant re-organizations and re-structuring does not mask deeper problems; it just diverts time from consumer focus.
- The old companies are still stuck in an old mindset.
What have you done to address the disruptive technologies that may impact your company?
An aging smartphone line, an inability to break out of the corporate niche, and the lack of any new product innovation are widely perceived to be eroding RIM’s business and stagnating growth. To achieve growth, many believed that RIM needed to branch out into the consumer sector; however, it may be too late as Apple is already firmly entrenched there.
How much of this erosion can we attribute to the mis-management by RIM’s co-CEO’s? They were, afterall, the masterminds behind the failed Playbook launch. It seems that RIM’s co-CEOs could not agree on who its PlayBook was for – RIM’s traditional enterprise customers, or for the vast retail market.
Did RIM’s co-CEOs lose focus?
“And the co-CEO’s extracurricular activities were almost too numerous to count. Balsillie was absorbed in one of his three failed attempts to bring an NHL franchise to Hamilton, and was also setting up otherwise laudable non-profit research institutes. Lazardis, meanwhile, was mid-wife to the Perimeter Institute, a world-class facility for pure rather than applied physics research – an apt metaphor for Lazaridis’ resistance to risking the purity and security of RIM devices with seamless Internet access, video streaming and music and game playing functions.”
This past weekend, Toronto hosted one of the G20 summits that have been occurring twice a year since 2008. One of the hot topics on the agenda was economic recovery after our recent recession, and due to the European debt crisis that is currently underway.
While there was a divide among attendees about which was better – more stimulus spending to help the economy recover, or more conservative spending and balanced budgets – all countries involved in the G20 summit have agreed to reduce their deficit by half by 2013. By the year 2016, these countries are all hoping to have stabilized their debt loads.
So what does that mean for Canadian businesses?
While nothing official has been announced as to what Canada will be doing to reduce its deficit, Canada was agreeing with the European countries that what is required to reach the goal of cutting back stimulus spending, so we can speculate that stimulus spending will be reduced. And that could mean, unfortunately, that a lot of programs small businesses get assistance from would not be able to provide as much fiscal support as we have become used to.
Of course, we don’t know what will happen for certain yet. But we will definitely be keeping an eye on what is decided about Canadian stimulus spending, and will be keeping you up-to-date with any announcements that are made that could have an effect on the way you run your business.
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