Dinosaurs

“Don’t worry things are great. Our revenues are at historic highs. Our client list contains the who’s who of the fortune 500. If we just buckle down and increase efficiencies, become the best at what we do and provide exceptional customer service we will prosper.” WRONG!Business as usual is dying and companies unwilling to step outside of themselves and reevaluate who they are and what they offer to the market place, as well as how they offer it, run the very real risk of being the most successful dinosaurs in the modern age, but dinosaurs nonetheless. We all remember what happened to the dinosaurs. We love to go to the local science museum and remark on their great size and grandeur, but we are all aware that we are looking at bones. Dinosaurs were big and impressive and certainly in their time ruled the world. However no matter how wonderful they were in their own time they are extinct today. 
Just as the climate and the changing face of the planet forced creatures of the prehistoric age to either evolve and change or find themselves extinct, changes in the modern era are forcing companies and industries to reevaluate everything from how they manage employees, to how they reach their customers effectively. Some companies are taking on this challenge head first, aware of the impending doom licking at their heels. Others are slowly waking up to the changing world and asking what does this mean to me, perhaps I should explore a little. And finally many, small, medium and large businesses are choosing to turn a blind eye to the cataclysmic shift that is occurring and these companies will die glorious deaths like the dinosaurs did. Instead of looking at their dried up bones in the science museum we will read about their rise to glory and their great accomplishments in business school text books, but that will not negate the fact that they no longer exist. They will have been replaced by companies that are quicker, more nimble, and ever vigilant of the users, organizations, environments and technologies that are shifting around them. Companies that did not follow the rules laid out in the business school case studies but forged a new path as they realized the landscape for success was dramatically changing underneath them. Not all of their experiments will have succeeded. You may not have been able to look at their balance sheets early on and seen explosive success as their calling card. Why will they be the survivors? Because they will have understood that seismic change is needed to deal with the new workers that have emerged, who have new and different value systems then their predecessors. They will have understood that the evolution in technology, how it is being consumed and utilized, has a dramatic impact on their bottom line. Companies that learn to harness its power will rise. They will have been cognizant that no matter how big you are as a company you have to see yourself as a global player to be successful. They will have understood that business rules and processes are being turned on their ear and every time the words “that is how we do it here” is spoken it is another death nail in their coffin. 
Evolving as a business in this revolutionary time is not a luxury for companies with extra money to spend on R&D, it is a mandate if you want to have a different fate then the Tyrannosaurus Rex. By all means he was a fabulous dinosaur. The mightiest and grandest of the dinosaurs, but he is still a pile of bones nicely propped up in the extinct animal exhibit downtown.