Don't Always Play Safe. Mistakes That Some Huge Tech Giants Made

DON’T ALWAYS PLAY SAFE

What does it take to be an entrepreneur? Is it enough to just have ideas? 

I myself am not an entrepreneur, but with a bit understanding of it, I can confidently say that just having some revolutionary ideas in mind is not enough to succeed as an entrepreneur. It takes a lot more to revolutionise the world.

One such thing is the having the courage to take risks. It is not important to always play safe, and sometimes for even big companies, it can become a question for survival.

Sometimes, the biggest mistake can be avoiding making a mistake. 

Writing this statement, a lot of companies come to my mind. Some to name are:

NOKIA: Nokia was one of the most successful mobile phone manufacturers till the Apple, Samsung and rest of the gang took over. Nokia didn’t change their product for a long time and thus, it became monotonous. 

A senior researcher at Nokia came forward with the invention of touch-screen technology and a flip-up design of cellphones but the idea was laughed off and rejected. The senior executives at Nokia weren’t ready for the changes and believed that the same cellphones they developed will continue to dominate. 

The first few years of the 21st century was the time when everything was going digital. The world was dominated by the digital transformation. The leaders should have understood that the same old mindset with the conventional technology won’t work for long.

The main reasons for the company’s downfall were the lack vision and the frightened middle-managers who were not ready to take risks.
Here’s what Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said while ending his speech in a press conference to announce Nokia being acquired by Microsoft: “We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow we lost.” 

The world was changing too fast, where missing out learning was their biggest mistake. 

KODAK: Kodak was founded in the late 19th century and ever since for the next around 100 years, it kept on growing. Everyone of you must have heard about the Photography films that Kodak manufactured. When George Eastman introduced this technology in the late 19th century, it became a huge trend. 

It was the first easy-to-use camera, which was advertised with a slogan, “You press the button, we do the rest.” 

Everything was going right for Kodak. They were making back to back good investments in the chemical and paper businesses, which were the backbone of photography films. 

By early 1980s, Kodak was at its epitome of success. It passed $10 billion in sales, and had practically no competitors even nearer to these numbers. 

What led to their downfall was the ignorance of Digital Photography. 

A young engineer named Steve Sasson (working as an independent scientist) invented the digital camera. Kodak’s executives patented it in its primitive state and didn’t do anything to develop or to promote it. 

This was the biggest mistake they made. 

When finally they started to go digital with the Advantix Preview film, they didn’t want to give up on the photography film technology in which they had made some huge investments. The senior executives were never ready to take that risk. Advantix basically allowed the users to preview their shots before printing them. It emphasised film because Kodak was still in paper, chemical and print business. 

As expected, Advantix failed. 

Kodak wasn’t able to adapt the business design to the changing conditions, which eventually lead to its continuous downfall. 

In 2012, company filed for bankruptcy protection. 

A sad ending indeed. 

Yahoo: How many of you have been Yahooing instead of Googling right now? I bet, around 2-3 in a 100, or even lesser.  

It is important to mention here that I am talking about Yahoo as a search engine. As a company, Yahoo is still playing great with some of its services like Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Answers which Google can’t beat in a near future. 

Yahoo was a company which once defined the internet but its inability to keep emerging according to the trends lead to their downfall.  

In 1998, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had approached Yahoo to sell their PageRank algorithm for just $1 Million because both of them were in Stanford and wanted to focus on their studies. Yahoo denied as they didn’t want to divert the audience to another platform. This was a big opportunity that the executives at Yahoo missed. 

Not just that, in 2006 Yahoo had an opportunity to buy Facebook. But because Yahoo lowered the offer, Mark Zuckerburg backed off. 

Had the company taken a few additional risks, Yahoo’s fate would possibly hold a different story. 

The complete descent can be summarised in a fact that Yahoo is no longer an independent company as was acquired by Verizon in 2017. 

These were just a few instances where the negligence of a new technology by the senior executives lead to the downfall of the companies. Some of them didn’t have the risk taking element within, while the others didn’t have a clear vision of future. 

IBM too was about to have a similar fate. Till 1980s, IBM was dominating in the computer industries. But in early 1990s, IBM failed to adjust to the personal computer revolution and thus started their downfall. The company adjusted its focus back on hardware instead of digging deep into the software, and thus was able to make a comeback. Today, IBM has emerged as one of the most successful research organisations, holding the record for the most number of US Patents. The products like hard drives, floppy discs and ATM machines were all developed by IBM. 

When realised that they were going down, IBM made a series of transitions and turned the tables around with a new management team. 

This is the ending most companies like Nokia, Kodak and Yahoo never saw. Sad. 

The learning we get from all these examples is that you cannot always succeed while playing safe. Sometimes, you have to step out, make mistakes and take risks. Take risks, but with a management plan ready in case of a failure.