What are you in the business of?
Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 9:00AM 
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About 20 years ago a movie came out called Other People's Money. It starred Danny DeVito as Lawrence Garfinkle, a corporate raider who sets his sight on New England Wire and Cable, a small-town business run by family patriarch Gregory Peck.
Towards the end of the movie Danny DeVito makes a speech to shareholders of the company. He's trying to persuade them to take a buyout instead of trying to stay with a company that will soon be obsolete. His argument: the future of cable production is fiber optics, not metal (which is the bread and butter of the company).
With the advent of new technology, New England Wire and Cable was in a precarious situation. They were in the business of wire and cable, not communication.
Now whether it's twenty years ago, last year or five years from now, the central theme of the movie is ever present: What are you in the business of?
Steve Jobs once said when he was at NeXT "we aren't creating computers. We are creating bicycles for the mind."
If you look at Netflix and how they operate, their actions say "we're not about late fees, movie rentals or DVDs by mail, we're here to bring you home entertainment."
Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, will tell you that they are in the business of delivering happiness. They just happen to sell shoes to do it. Now as they say, money can't buy you happiness, but a deal worth about 900 million dollars with Amazon might buy you some time to help you figure out where it is...
Looking at certain sectors of print media, many are learning the hard way that their business needs to be news, not newspapers.
Thinking differently about what you offer customers will allow you to see new opportunities. Today's market demands that your business model be agile, fluid and creative. I'm sure static is not an idea you'd want to be closely tied to. What you want is a business focus with unending possibilities.
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