Millennium Marketing Research®
Tom Schori DBA Millennium Marketing Research®, 808 Ironwood, Normal IL 61761, 309-532-8466

Is any company really 'unassailable' in today's marketplace?

By Thomas R. Schori, Ph.D., and Michael L. Garee, Principals,  Millennium Marketing Research, 808 E. Ironwood, Normal, IL 61761-5239. Tel. 309-532-8466 -

Time was, not so very long ago, actually, that some companies that were sitting at the pinnacle of their industries seemed absolutely unassailable. And, "seemed" is the operative word here. Because, in retrospect, we now know that what seemed to be absolute was merely illusory, that no company in today’s dynamic marketplace is "unassailable." No company.

Consider, for example, how very long IBM dominated not only American business but international business as well. In every sense of the word, for decades the company reigned supreme as the "giant" among "giants," the "blue chip" company among "blue chip" companies. You may recall that, for many, many years, every business guru writing a book consistently mentioned IBM in their "short, short list" of the places to be employed. And, of course, it was a well-earned reputation the company had!

Then, came the "blood bath" that began in the late 1980s and continued apace into the 1990s, and occurred for a whole variety of reasons, but essentially they all relate to the fact that the company, like so many companies, had simply taken its "eye off the ball." Some tens of thousands of job losses later, and after years of literally hemorrhaging money, the company was finally rescued literally from the brink of disaster by Lou Gerstner, the new, visionary Chief Executive Officer. He hasn’t had an easy time of it, but it now looks as though the company will not only survive, but may even once again prevail. Still, the company is well aware that it indeed "ducked a bullet."

Remember the WordPerfect® Corporation? Sure, you do, because some of you probably still use WordPerfect® as your word processing program, but certainly far, far fewer of you today than was the case in the mid-1980s, when WordPerfect literally owned the software product category. There weren’t even any close "seconds"! Nowadays, however, the company is a mere shadow of its former self, and the friendly folks over at Microsoft® long ago kicked the stuffing out of WordPerfect® with its now dominant Word® for Windows® word processing program.

What happened? Was it arrogance, or simply ignorance? Regardless of what actually precipitated the company’s ultimate decline, suffice it to say that WordPerfect® substantially misread the direction the word processing market segment was taking in the mid-1980s. And, boy, did they pay for that shortsightedness! That direction can be summed up in one word: "Windows®." Developed initially for the Disk Operating System, WordPerfect® vastly underestimated the vital importance of developing a word processing program for the (then) burgeoning Microsoft® Windows® operating system. And, as a result, the company was very much the late comer to that product category. While WordPerfect® dallied, Microsoft® was making giant strides in the product category with its Word® for Windows®. By the time WordPerfect® finally realized what was happening, and finally brought its (slow-as-syrup, code-bloated) WordPerfect® for Windows® program to market, the game was already over. And WordPerfect® had decisively lost.

Microsoft® also dealt, if not a "death" blow at least a "wounding" blow, to another one-time leader in an important software product category, the spreadsheet program. Once the spreadsheet program, Lotus 1-2-3® must now share the category with Microsoft® Excel®. And then there is Netscape®, the Internet browser that once dominated that product category. Netscape® now is struggling to hold on to its lead in the category, with Microsoft®’s own browser, Internet Explorer, coming on stronger by the day. (We won’t even get into the legal issues surrounding this particular "battle." Suffice it to say that we believe in FREE enterprise, and as long as there is a "level playing field," may the best product win. And it will!)

There are, of course, numerous other examples of once-dominant companies that have experienced this same type of "comeuppance." Consider giant AT&T. Until deregulation of the telephone industry, they certainly appeared to be unassailable, didn’t they? How are they looking today? Weakened, to be sure. Or, how about R. J. Reynolds? Remember how this giant seemed to be acquiring everything in sight during the days of "corporate raiding"? Certainly still solvent by any measure, it’s nonetheless taken some scary "shots" across its "bow" in recent years in some of its product categories, not the least of which is its "flag ship" tobacco divisions, which once overwhelmingly dominated the market but no longer do.

And there is always Apple Corporation. And Sunbeam. And General Motors (which once owned one-half of the entire automobile market, but of course no longer does!) And Kodak. And what about. . .well, you get the idea.

What’s the point of all of this? A mere business history lesson? Of course not. The point is this: regardless of where one works today, whether it’s for the industry leader, number two, or number 2,000, no company¾no company!¾is "unassailable" in today’s marketplace. It appears that the "lesson" today for all companies, regardless of their relative standing in their industry, (to take a great deal of liberty with legendary baseball great Satchel Paige’s famous quote) is this: "You’d better make a habit of looking over your shoulder to see who is gaining on you!"

Not bad advice, anyway you look at it!