The path to business success has to start here – and, it pretty much ends here:

You have to have a product or service that others will pay for…

If you get everything right except this, you’re toast.  You’ve got to have a product, or service, that people want, or need, and will pay for.

Nothing matters as much as this!  Nothing.

I thought of this as I read the excellent, hit-you-between-the-eyes column by Joe Nocera:  How Not to Stay on Top.

Here are the examples Mr. Nocera uses:

(Late 1970s, early 1980s) At Wang’s peak, some 80 percent of the top 2,000 corporations used the company’s word processors…
By 1992, Wang Laboratories was bankrupt, done in by competitors that understood that people wanted their computers to be more than glorified typewriters.

And, now, the “Wang” of today is the BlackBerry.  Again, from the column:

In its heyday, the BlackBerry was so popular that it was nicknamed the CrackBerry. Chief technology officers loved its emphasis on security. Corporate employees loved its compact keyboard, which they mastered with their thumbs. As recently as 2009, the BlackBerry had about 22 percent of the smartphone market.

Today, of course, the company — which recently changed its name to BlackBerry — is in a heap of trouble. In the most recent quarter, it announced a net loss of $84 million, the latest in a string of bad financial news. In the latest quarter, its share of the global smartphone market had slid to 2.7 percent.

What did Wang, and BlackBerry, get wrong?  In Wang’s case, they completely rejected the very idea that the multiple PC functions other than Word Processing would ever be used in the office, much less could pose a threat to their “dedicated’ word processor.  They got that wrong!

And in BlackBerry’s case, they viewed this newfangled iPhone as simply a toy.  It was not even worth a look from the superior BlackBerry users – serious people would never exchange a serious business tool for such a toy.

Yep – they got it wrong too!

You see, people don’t want a Word Processor, or a PC, or a Smartphone.  No matter how good these products are.  Instead, they want to get their work done – well, quickly, easily.  And if, tomorrow afternoon, someone comes out with a brand new gizmo that makes it easier to get the work done, this new gizmo will be written about as the newfangled arrival that put Apple, or Netflix, or… out of business.

In What Matters Now:  How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation, Gary Hamel put it this way;

Innovation matters now
Adaptability matters now

Yes, they do.

Granted, I’ve used business product examples.  But the same is true in any arena.  The newer gizmo tool, or toy, or fashion, or car, or entertainment system, or reading delivery device (Kindle App vs. physical book), or…  The new is always a threat to the existing choice.  That is more true by the year – almost by the day.  And any company providing the existing choice better lead the way themselves to the next preferred choice.  Or else.

And when a company fails to adapt, and/or innovate, then the “old” product or service they offer will be consigned to the memory bin in what seems like a heartbeat.

The future is up for grabs.  And the old provider has to re-earn the right to be the current and future provider over and over again.