Growing Business Trends

In the old days, businesses would never consider partnering with competitors, much less merging with competitors. But the roots of change became evident in the early 1980s when the growing trend among software companies engendered sales channel partnerships, and service providers offered services to help clients integrate competitive products. As the days of acquisition waned, large companies divested companies they could not manage and went back to core competencies, using partners and channel sales to expand their business and offer complementary services their clients wanted.  

Today, the very survival of the largest companies is dependent on their willingness to seek out and execute merger opportunities and to buy or sell businesses that will help their companies survive into the next fiscal year. These companies hope to stabilize and reinvent the business but some are merely pursuing old strategies with a new twist and ignoring growing trends and the reality of global competition.   

After all, businesses are merely a microcosm of any other community of people and most people will only change if they are forced to change. Hidden in the growing trend of mergers and layoffs is the reality that most of these businesses are not really changing their business model or their approach to the market, nor are they embracing the consumer trends or performing trend analysis that would give them the true picture.

It is hard to imagine that a U.S. auto company could not foresee the downfall of the sports utility vehicle, knowing the future reality of oil shortages and oil prices. It is hard to imagine that a tobacco company could not foresee the need to create and market new products that would not sicken or kill the very people who bought their products.  

If the advent of green products and cost saving utility alternatives offers an opportunity for growing sales, there will be plenty of companies jumping on the band wagon but, the fact is, with forethought and planning these companies could have anticipated these developments and by leading the charge, positioned themselves as the market leader and expert.  

Without that kind of ingenuity, the growing trend of business mergers and bankruptcies is just a bandage on the real problem. If the United States wants to achieve leadership in the global market, its businesses must stop grousing about global competition and high prices and get back to the business of creativity and sound business policies. That combination will certainly result in growing sales!