Many a business of yesteryear has come, flourished for a time and gone. Their business focus was on pushing a product down the customer’s throat and not the needs and wants of the customer. The customer needs were changing with time, sometimes because of technology, and the business focus never followed along.
Two examples of this:
1. Railroad companies failed to comprehend that their business focus was transportation and did not pay attention to the advent of the airplane.
2. Newspapers failed to understand that the web gave their customers access to news in real time. The customer did not have to wait for the printed articles and the newspaper companies are now a dying breed. They failed to acknowledge that their business focus had changed to real-time information from advertising.
The Impact of Social Media on business focus.
Another entire industry, the entertainment industry, is again failing to understand the changes that are happening in the customer environment. The customer is now actively involved in the concurrent creation of information and entertainment because of Social media. Tools like Twitter, Facebook, PInterest, YouTube and Instagram allow customers to create in real time information and to a great extent their own entertainment. They are no longer forced to sit and stare at a television set taking whatever programming is being dished out to them. Now they are literally involved in the programming of their own entertainment in real time by tweeting or posting on Facebook or the other social media sites.
Business focus and the influence of information streaming
The day of the TV conglomerates is fast disappearing and unless they begin to understand the changing needs of their customer base, they will soon vanish into oblivion. The day of the publishing companies is over and magazines and books are changing shape as we shift to a digital format for this information. Internet speeds and bandwidth sizes have increased tremendously and large blocks of information can now be streamed in real time. Music and video can now be enjoyed in real time. Companies are being forced to change their publishing methods and CDs, DVDs and all of the devices used to play them are soon to disappear.
Our world economy has shifted to one based mainly on information technology. Health care needs to be modified in this new world of real time patient information. Law and its practice needs to be changed along with contracts and the way they are signed. And as this happens, jobs that were available will continue to disappear; we no longer need meter readers because the information can now be transmitted electronically; medical transcribers will disappear as we get medical records in digital format and physicians begin to use the power of posting electronic information in real time. The post office is becoming a thing of the past and the postman soon won’t ring at all just like how the telegram delivery service went away a long time ago.
If this is not scary enough, it is just a matter of time before the parcel post companies like Fedex and UPS will begin to disappear as we move into the realm of “beam me up Scotty”.
Let us stop there. This path is too frightening to follow.
Do you know what your business focus really is???