You know … Why dinosaurs disappeared? Some scientists would say that it was due to a meteorite, the disappearance of animals to eat or low temperatures, however, the real cause was another: because they did not adapt to the speed of their environment. So, if we ask “why do companies die?” It is very likely that we will get answers of the type “they stopped buying my product”, “consumers changed their tastes”, “the crisis”, etc. However, is it possible that the cause is the same as that of the dinosaurs?
There are several reasons that can lead to the closure of a company, but this may be motivated by the obsolescence of its solutions, by the disappearance of its market or by the emergence of more aggressive competitors, but in any case all this is but the consequence of not evolving and not adapting to the speed of the market.
And it is that although we could argue that the main cause of business closure is the lack of liquidity, it would be like saying that they have died because their hearts have stopped (and the heart of every company is their operating capital). It is something that gives us information about the immediate reason of death, but not the root cause.
In this case, the company has not been able to create enough value for its clients, and after a few years it dies of apathy, mediocrity. But above all die of comfort. She dies without being remembered, without being missed by anyone but those who saw her born and those who were left without work. It is another that would swell the statistics of business mortality. And it is that, for the traditional companies it is more comfortable to continue doing more of the same, to milk the cow, to imitate the big ones of the sector and to take care of their plot.
The adaptation of companies to this changing environment (VUCA) has led to the reinforcement of the concept of continuous reinvention. Reinvent the products, reinvent the processes and even reinvent the business models. Take as an example the case of music, a business based on the sale of a product, the disc, has gone on sale of a service, access to songs. You no longer buy a CD, now you buy a subscription on the internet.
Certainly many of the “old” activities have given great joys, and can still continue to do so, but what is clear is that if we do not evolve with the same speed as the market we will end up staying out of the game.
Therefore, in a market in which digital has a preponderant weight in the production and communication processes, it is essential to adapt our marketing processes to that environment, and to include digital marketing within the strategic processes of our businesses because, in Otherwise, we will simply be unable to adapt to market evolutions and we will disappear like prehistoric dinosaurs.
Most companies die because they have not known how to create a product or service that really adds value to their customers, or at least enough value to pay for it. And even if at some point in the past they succeeded, often what happens is that they disconnect from those customers, and do more of the same. The problem is that they forget that those initial clients that were so faithful have evolved, they have been changing and the competition has known how to reach them.
So if a company does not want to die, you have to go out to the street every day, to talk to customers, keeping an eye on the present and another in the future … and with what we learn, mistakes are corrected and improved the products and services. It is not easy, and it will take a lot of effort to make it happen … but if we do not, we will become the next dinosaurs.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?