I guess I should warn you, I’m going to pound this subject hard. The reason is the overwhelming evidence is shouting Act! yet the activity level suggests few are listening. Change is coming too slowly.

If you own or manage a business have you figured out how the web, yeah, the one that’s almost 15 years old, will change your business or industry in the next few years? Okay, so you have a website. That's not enough. That's just a first-step. We're still at the beginning of building a connected commerce-enabled world, not the end.

What I’m asking is do you really understand how the online world is going to change your business over time (going forward) and what are you doing about it? Will you lead the innovation or will you run into it like a brick wall. Will you accelerate the adopion of new technologies and platforms like Jimmie Johnson coming out of a turn or will resist change like a grease stain on Jimmie's garage floor?

Based on facts, on history, it seems very few people figure out technology in time to prevent massive shifts, new winners and losers, in industry after industry. "Change your business" is a task, not a theme for a meeting or annual report.

Companies and people are generally very slow to change. Even overwhelming evidence is often ignored. Here are some examples of what I’m talking about.

• iTunes has sold over 10 millions songs online, how many record store owners saw that coming?
• Netflix is approaching $2B in sales and the stock has climbed 182% in the last 52-weeks. Blockbuster profits declined 17% and their stock price is down 51.4% during the same period. Mom-and-pop video stores are about extinct.
• The print industry is down an estimated 30%-40% from the highs of just a few years ago, and the smart ones left standing are scrambling to get into the website building business. The rest need to get used to revenue levels that make supporting expensive printing equipment difficult at best.
• Movie producers are linking up with the cable providers to deliver newly released movies (30 days after opening in the theaters) into our living and media rooms. Do you think most theater owners have a plan to combat this new channel, this new competitor? Some probably do, maybe, but most will watch the sun set on them and never take bold action.
• Mainstream marketing firms with plush offices and high fixed cost teams of people ready to help clients with PR, web-design, advertising, branding, logo design, messaging, product launches, annual reports and channel programs are laying off people by the truckload. Small, low-overhead outfits promoting and selling their services online are thriving.
• While we’re on the subject of “mainstream,” how about the major news networks. If you still watch the evening news on CBS, NBS and ABC, you’re watching the same format everyone watched in the 50’s and 60’s. That’s remarkable! Is it any wonder that  they are now competing with Fox News, which I consider a serious news outlet, TMZ,  Comedy Central and The HuffingtonPost.com? The HuffingtonPost now has 4,000 regular contributors (literary crowd-sourcing), 11 million visitors a month and a value estimated at $100M. They were a startup in 2005.
• The United States Postal Service is trying to eliminate an entire delivery day (16.6% of their schedule) to bring costs inline with revenues while email, texting, bill paying, banking and online promotions continue to enjoy double-digit growth.
• The big brokerage firms were getting their hats handed to them by online discount firms long before the current financial crisis hit. Rather than reposition their businesses they chose to destroy their brands by selling inferior products to trusting clients. Their strategy was no more sophisticated than a thief's: "Grab what you can before the police show up..."
• And personally I don’t see how our high-cost universities can survive into the future. The web has enough interactive capabilities and bandwidth to deliver a ton of education to our screens (all of them) at a fraction of the cost we tolerate today.

I could go on...but the point is you need to take ht e"change your business" lead.

In industry after industry a new entrant or an enlightened company figures out how to leverage the web, change the competitive landscape, and grab huge chunks of market share. The previous industry leaders stand around watching, tweaking their businesses at the edges, and waiting for yesterday’s model to reemerge victoriously. That ain’t happenin'!

Yesterday is gone forever. If you’re not figuring out how to leverage the web in a big way to change your business and the competitive landscape in your industry then know this, someone else is.

Steve
800-707-9150