Adapt or Die

Photo from Inkling Magazine

This is kind of a rant and somewhat apropos of nothing, but…

I have so little patience or sympathy for companies/industries that refuse to adapt the changing market place. Rather than just change their business model, they try to force the marketplace to conform to it.

I’m sorry, but no matter how successful or enduring your business model has been, you still need to constantly examine and change it because the marketplace is constantly changing.

Keep in mind this coming from someone who has never formally studied business in any form.

But, take for instance the music industry. Rather than embrace the free flow of information that is the internet and find a new business model to take advantage of that, they’re trying to force people to play by the pre-internet rules.

The automobile industry: GM is thinking about selling Hummer. Big surprise. Experts have been predicting for years that gas prices would go above $5 a gallon, but did they do anything about that? No. If they had developed their original electric car (instead of rushing it into production now), they’d be minting money. Instead they bet on gas guzzlers and now they’re hosed.

The airline industry: Likewise. They had to be idiots not to see high fuel prices would doom them. Now they’re losing so much money, they don’t even have the cash reserves to merge.

The publishing industry: too slow to embrace the internet.

Small independent booksellers: Only ones that were able to adapt when Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon, and Wal-Mart came on the scene have survived. Too many stood around acting as if the publishing world owed them their existence. They’re all closed now.

Of course, high fuel prices are the sweet revenge on box stores. The money you spend on gas to get to them erases any savings. Let’s see if they adapt.