The Status Quo Is Deadly

As Sir Isaac Newton offered, an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by a force. Why is preserving the status quo deadly?

• A more agile competitor may seize competitive advantage whilst you are at rest
• Your market share can decline to the point of your company being irrelevant
• As companies attain greater efficiency, they can afford to decrease prices while maintaining profits, a move that can put a wounded competitor out of business.

Are there examples of this?

• Boeing has lost nearly 50 percent of its market share to Airbus
• Blackberry once owned the smartphone market–you hear very little about them today
• EMC destroyed disk storage system competitors by offering turn-key solutions (hardware and software) to enable faster access times retrieving specific data on disk storage systems. This enabled EMC to destroy competitors as being flat-footed, undifferentiated and far less desirable and valuable for the marketplace.

If you are too much at rest, it’s time to pick up your game. Find out what your market needs and wants that others aren’t able to satisfy and, if you take action, you’ll increase your differentiation and desirability. Do this continuously, not once a year or every other year.

Thought for the week:

“The past has no power over the present moment.” – Eckhart Tolle