Published on: January 20, 2014
by Kevin CoupeI'd like to use this space this morning to do something a little different. Rather than highlight one specific story that I think offers some sort of lesson or metaphor about how business is - or ought to be - conducted, I'd like to simply draw your attention to a theme that seems to be running through this morning's MNB stories.
There's a piece about how Amazon is developing software that will be able to figure out what you want to buy even before you buy it, and then position that product so it can get the item to you faster. There's a story about how online realities (low and dynamic pricing and burgeoning shipping wars) are going to change the competitive landscape. There's a report on how Peapod is working to carve out its position on that landscape so that it can effectively fight off Amazon and Walmart. And there's a link to a contrarian think piece about how technology actually is not making us less intimately connected with each other.
There also is a lot of other stuff this morning. (It is a particularly robust news Monday.) But it strikes me that all of these stories point to a fast-changing retail dynamic in which competitors must constantly be considering the big idea, looking for the big opportunity, and being far more targeted and precise in how they define themselves.
To me, that's the Eye-Opener. It shouldn't surprise anyone, but it will.
"Innovation," Steve Jobs once said, "distinguishes between a leader and a follower."
Businesses that are not taking risks in pursuit of innovation are taking a different risk - that they will be left behind, irrelevant and impotent, watching from behind as new companies and new ideas capture people's imaginations and business.
- KC's View: