Continuous Challenges to Business - - Anticipate Change And React To It Positively

Much of what separates businesses that have long track records of consistent performance and profitability from those that have never achieved success, or whose success has been fleeting, is the ability to anticipate change. The very difficult, but critical, challenge in business is to see today where the market opportunities will be tomorrow, then react quickly and gear up to turn out products and/or services to meet those needs. That may involve new products, processes, suppliers, customers, employees or all of these things.

In the 1980s, we saw breakthroughs in industrial automation and productivity. In order to keep up with domestic and foreign competitors, U.S. smokestack industries restructured massively. Many manufacturing jobs were lost, but opportunities expanded in the high-tech and services sectors.

In the 1990s, the pace of economic, demographic and technological change is even more rapid. For businesses, both large and small, this makes for growing dynamism in potential markets, sources of supply, and pools of labor and managerial talent.

In such an environment, there is no approach more perilous than giving in to the all-too-human urge to keep on doing what has produced today's prosperity rather than doing the hard work and thinking, and going through the uncomfortable process of change that will result in the production of wealth and jobs in the future.

Two of the most important trends in force today, which no large businesses and few small ones can afford to ignore, are the related developments of a global economy � rather than local or national � and the evolution of communications and transportation technologies that make the distance between suppliers, producers and consumers less of a factor or none at all. Failure to react to these trends could put a business at serious cost and service disadvantages and keep it from taking advantage of opportunities for growth.

The institution of American business has, on a number of occasions, paid a price for failing to perceive such emerging trends. In the 1970s, for example, the U.S. automobile industry did not adequately react to the changing attitudes of consumers, the potential for skyrocketing gasoline prices and the ability of Japanese automakers to take advantage of the situation.

Although U.S. automakers are, without doubt, better businesses today for having had to respond to competition, the pain of lost jobs and shareholder value was all too real.