Google Turns 21 Years Old Today!

The big news is that Google turns 21 today. For those that remember its launch & rise to fame like myself hearing that number puts a lot into perspective. On one hand, it appears that technology changes so rapidly but on the other hand 21 years is a LONG TIME!

I have spent almost three decades of my career in technology sales so I have seen my fair share of change. When I first started in the technology industry in the early 90's I remember the buzz when an affordable PC first came out with the 1GB hard drive. This was huge since the first 1GB hard drive was introduced by IBM in 1980 for $40,000, weighed about 550lbs and was the size of a refrigerator!

At the time everyone was saying "How could anyone possibly need that much data storage on a PC?" Now I carry 512 times that much in the palm of my hand on my smartphone.  So what’s the point I want to make?  It is that TECHNOLOGY CHANGES BEHAVIOR!

We all know the stories of Blockbuster, Kodak, and Xerox but do you know all the facts?  These companies did not fail because they lacked the awareness that the market was changing and was blind to the new competition.  These companies were aware of how consumers were changing buying behavior.  Blockbuster had on-line movie rental beating the new contender Netflix, Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975 ahead of the competition, and Xerox had the Xerox Star a laser printer more advanced than any of its competitors.

So why did they fail?  A conscious decision was made by company leadership to stay on the course of what they knew and what was historically profitable to hit their short-term goals instead of advancing themselves for future stability.  This is not the ignorance of leadership as much as it is the Nature of Big Business!  When you have quotas and a role in a company to produce each and every quarter as an employee you are driven to make short term assured decisions.  ADOPTING CHANGE IS EXPENSIVE! And you need to make smart decisions when doing so plus have corporate backing to see it through the tough times.

My father was a part of another long-gone company where I saw this first hand.  He was a design engineer for Western Electric the primary supplier of phones to AT&T and Bell Operating companies from 1881 to 1996.  Our household was filled with some of the oldest classics and space-age technology in phones anyone ever saw.  The old phones were for my dad's nostalgia and new ones, like the video speakerphone we had in the ’80s, was the talk of the neighborhood.

So why did we have this cool technology for the times but this no longer existing giant of industry is no longer around?  Because, even though they had the knowledge, the cost to develop the products were weighed against the ability to sell it to the consumer market and it was deemed to not be a good use of company expenses so it ended up on “the cutting room floor”.  

IN SUMMARY, the key take away is that technology changes buyer behavior and with Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, and others the modern buyer needs a modern seller.  You need to find a way to adapt or you run the risk of slowly slipping away from meeting your goals until it’s too late to turn around.

Chuck Shaver - Director of Sales

Vengreso | The Digital Sales Transformation Company