Business models are shifting faster than ever. That’s just a simple fact.
The challenge for most of our businesses isn’t change. Change is simple, it is constant. Pat Riley said something to the effect of, “Change is the only thing in life that is certain and when you see change coming, you must embrace it.”
That’s truer now than ever before.
The challenge lies in the fact that as much as change is the defining attribute of our business and cultural lives, we do a terrible job of actually embracing it.
Right now we have a political moment in the United States that is pretty much defined by one side talking about the future and one side clinging to the past.
The future always wins.
The problem is, if you don’t embrace the future, you often end up serving at the whims of the people that have embraced the future.
If you aren’t always asking yourself a question about “what has happened and what isn’t likely to revert to the way it was” you are likely to be stuck in a moment that you can’t get out of.
If you don’t evolve quickly, someone else will.
Much is made of the fact that today’s Fortune 500 companies have faster life cycles. That the birth to death of a big business is faster than any point in modern history.
You can’t argue with that.
Its a fact.
The reasons that are being debated likely don’t ever account for the fact that everything is changing faster than ever before.
Our culture has become always on. We are coming up with new ways to apply old business models that is altering the relationships that business, especially legacy businesses, have with their customers, their prospects, and their markets.
This isn’t new.
This kind of change has always happened.
What is new is the speed.
That’s why we all need to evolve faster.
Clinging to a legacy business model isn’t going to create security for you. Maybe for a very short period of time, but in the long run its going to churn you under.
Don’t believe me?
How’s Kodak doing today?
Sears?
Compaq?