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1-Page Summary of Blindsided
Why Companies Get Blindsided
Polaroid and Kodak were caught off guard by the rise of digital photography. Microsoft was also surprised when the Internet grew in popularity, but it quickly adapted to that change. Other companies that have been blindsided include Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks because they didn’t recognize a technology that would drastically affect their industries with new products or services.
To avoid being blindsided by changes in your industry, you need to be able to recognize and respond quickly. Rapid change is transforming the economic landscape; therefore, companies no longer use five-year strategic plans. Instead of focusing on what’s happening now, they should focus on how fast they can realize that things are changing and adapt their strategies accordingly. First, establish systems that will help you identify threats early so that you can react to them more quickly. Second, make sure your company has a strategy for dealing with surprises as soon as possible after they happen.
Ready to Rumble
In order to respond quickly to change, it’s important to recognize when and how your industry is changing. You do this by seeing the risks that are involved with these changes.
We should see opportunities rather than threats when change happens.
Understand the risk and opportunity in a new technology. 4. Communicate this to your employees so they can take advantage of it by creating strategic alliances, launching new products and services, etc.
Keep an eye on the situation so you can keep adapting to it. Once you identify the problem, your response should include five critical processes: 1. Generate options.
Choose and Execute
Communicate throughout your organization. 4. Execute this new option. 5. Monitor the situation. Some tools are available to help you recognize change, such as Gartner’s Hype Cycle Model, which can be applied to any new phenomena and predicts when a technology will reach its peak popularity and then fall out of favor (such as with the dot-com crash). However, if you’re able to weather that downturn in support, your company is likely stronger for it and will experience long-term success afterward (as most people still use email or surf the web).
Some companies are having a hard time adapting to the changes in today’s business environment. They are also resisting change because they have already invested money and energy into their current system, which can be difficult for them to let go of.
To keep up with the times, consider how ants do it. They use a meandering trail to find new food and water sources, and they let other ants know about their discoveries. You can apply this method when you need to search for better ways of doing things: send people out in directions that may not be familiar, then have them report back once they’ve found something new.
Laws That Shape the Future
Some businesses, such as LexisNexis, Factiva and Dialog, work to help other companies by providing online news and information. One way to detect change is by looking at the intersection of trends in those industries with others. For example, a law states that new technology doubles every year. Another law says that old organizations will be “swept aside” by outsiders using new technologies.
Moore’s Law, Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, 1965 – The power of computer processing will double every 18 months. * Metcalfe’s Law, Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com – The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of people using it. * __Coase’s Theorem, Ronald Coase, University of Chicago economics professor – When transaction costs are high and there are many players involved in a market or industry, companies tend to take on more diverse tasks in-house. However, as transaction costs fall ( i. e. if you could pay someone else to do that task for less than what it would cost you ) and fewer companies can compete effectively, firms tend to focus on core business and outsource non-core tasks.
