“Your real competition lies beyond the companies against which you rank yourself. Your real competition is in the dynamic start-ups yet to reveal their big new ideas. It’s in current technologies morphing into uses directly impacting your business, and in the minds of changing demographics who are soon to be your new customers. It’s in places you rarely think about. But these are the competitive forces that will make fundamental changes to the way you do business. If you are using traditional market analysis methods to understand your place in the market, you are likely to lag far behind. And if you are using traditional Strategic Planning methods, you are likely to become irrelevant.”
“Think about Zillow positioning to replace real estate brokers, or Amazon changing how we buy and sell, or 80 million Millennials maturing into the market. Keeping up with these disruptors is challenging. I saw it first hand in the car rental business when Uber and Lyft changed the options for business and leisure travelers. Enterprise had to pivot into new business models and pursue non-traditional customers to continue growth and market expansion. The question I like to pose to leaders is: “Are you building the capability needed to see change coming and take actions rather than be forced into reactions?”
