Business Logic 101: What might kill you now is what might save later!

Ever since we were little kids, our parents and carer used to advise us to stay away from anything that might cause us harm, for example, fire, electricity, etc.

As we grow old, the list of things that we should stay away from to be safe grows as well. We stay away from speeding too much while driving, falling from a cliff, and listening to modern political debates on television. All these may cause you severe damage not just to your body, but to your mental health as well.

This seems logical and makes perfect sense, however, imagine someone loaded with this life skill is now a business leader in a company, and he/she tries to apply the same principle to the business. That this to steer his/her company away from anything that he/she thinks it might cause damage or harm to the business, although this sounds very logical, however, applying this principal blindly might cause even more severe damage to your business.

Let me elaborate more, imagine Steven Sasson while presenting his idea of the digital camera to his boss in Kodak, and his boss decided to proceed to market it rather than keeping the business away from the idea that might kill Kodak film sales?

Imagine the world where Yahoo acquires Google from the first time they had the talk, or Nokia and Blackberry invested in the none-physical keyboard, touch screen phones before Apple debuted its iPhone, imagine my space invested in Facebook or acquiring it rather than rejecting it etc..

This brings us to the original principal, although staying away from what might cause you harm is essential for your existence as a person, it is not for your business. you should actually do the opposite and embrace all areas that might disrupt your business and try to find an opportunity in it.

For example, I can imagine in a five to ten years time from now (or maybe less), every room of our homes will have wireless charging hotspot hanging from the ceiling next to the light bulb. If the wireless charging technology became mainstream, who would still be using disposable batteries? Having said that the ones who should be heavily investing in wireless technology nowadays should be the giant battery producers such as Duracell and Energizer, if they are not, then expect another Nokia or Kodak in the battery business very soon.

Another example and a more obvious one is electric cars. if the traditional petrol car manufacturers are not investing heavily in electric cars, not today, but form 10 years ago, then again expect another Nokia and Kodak in the automotive business.

I can go on and on with more examples, but I guess you got the idea, in business staying away from what might harm you will harm you even more. You should embrace and explore the threat and try to seize every single opportunity that may come out of it, even if there is no tangible benefit in the short run, but who knows, that might be the only thing that saves your business one day.