Horror Stories of Trying to Ride Success Forever Classic business cautionary tales of those ignoring this concept include the demise of the buggy whip industry and everything having to do with equestrian transportation. After the automobile industry was well established, a very successful Ford Motor Company lost its market leadership to General Motors for fifty years or more when founder Henry Ford failed to notice or acknowledge that customers were prepared to ignore the mighty Model T in a single color, black, and pay a lot more for a variety of colors and other options. The railroad, that great 19thcentury invention helped win the American west and in the process helped to create some of the wealthiest men in America. From Europe to Asia the railroad caused major changes in the history of the world over the next hundred years Yet the legendary and mighty companies which were the industry’s stalwarts shrank to tiny shadows of their former eminence when airline transportation became wide spread. The entire billion-dollar vinyl record industry vanished almost overnigh t and vinyl record manufacturers ost millions when they failed to prepare for the growing threat from the development of compact disc technology. Slide rules, were once carried by engineers worldwide. Their market disappeared in months with the introduction of the handheld calculator. I could go on, but you get the general idea. The point is, like a light bulb which burns its brightest just prior to complete failure, many of these companies and industries were at their best just a few years or in some cases just a few months prior to their bankruptcy. This is true of products and services as well as strategies and concepts . Remember the explosion of software stores of the 80’s? Where are these stores today? Even mighty Sear Roebuck & Company one of the first mail order companie s, the company that created “the Wish Book throughout America essentially was forced out of the catalog busines s with losses in 2003 after over a hundred years of successful operation.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 07:23:21 +0000
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