A decade or so ago, watching a movie at home meant heading out to the local Blockbuster location, grabbing one of the new releases and possibly a classic then driving home and sitting on the couch with that special someone—even if that was your favorite stuffed animal.
But Blockbuster was sent with warp-speed into irrelevance when Netflix launched a service that allowed people to have movies sent directly to them, first through the mail and these days via streaming on their TVs, while Blockbuster stuck to what had always worked for them—until it didn’t.
Unless you want that to happen to you and your integration firm, the lesson you should learn from the example is not to always rely on what’s worked for you, says Leo Hopf, CEO of Teamhopf, in his presentation “Rethink, Reinvent, Reposition” at the 2015 InfoComm AV Executive Conference. There will come a day when people will no longer be interested in what you’ve always done and you’ll be gone, not because you did something wrong, but more because you didn’t try something new, says Hopf.
“Mistakes don’t kill you,” he says. “You get in trouble when you play it safe and customers don’t think about you anymore. Customers used to come to you for knowledge. Now they can find their answers on the Internet. The challenge is the way we built the company was what worked in the old days. If you don’t make the leap, that’s when you have trouble.”
Hopf sees three major ways to ensure your company is always on the leading edge of innovation. The choice of which path you take is personal and none of the three is the wrong way to go, depending on the circumstances, he says.
The first option, says Hopf, is to change your business model to what will work three years from now. That approach, he says, will require a lot of time, money and attention and obviously require thinking in new ways and predicting the future.
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The second path, as Hopf sees it, is to set an end date for the business itself or your time with the business. It’s a decision that’s largely made by older owners and executives, but can also be something a younger person who’s running the company decides if he or she wants to pursue a new challenge elsewhere.
The third approach, which ultimately will end in failure, is keeping the business optimized for the so-called “old days” when you’re trying to compete today, says Hopf.
“When you choose this way, every day brings more pain and more wishing it’d go back to the way it used to be,” he says.
When it comes to change, you can do it quickly and lead the way, do it at the same rate as everyone else just to keep up or do it slower than your competition and have to catch up with them.
“You don’t want your business to be thought of as ‘nice, controlled, solid and predictable,'” says Hopf. “That’s not what your industry is.”
Companies in all industries follow the same path, going from business innovating in the startup phase, then on to the emerging/growth phase when customers are excited about what you’re selling, then to maturity, and finally to the renewal or decline phase, says Hopf.
“It’s not that important to be right or have something better,” he says. “You need clarity and the right alignment to be able to support what you’re doing.”
