Shop Talk With the Publisher

Change: The path to opportunity

By Carol Carman

How clearly are you seeing the big picture these days? Whether it’s the “hang in there and trust me” reports from my investment counselor, the front page of the Wall Street Journal or the latest report on my “stock portfolio” (I put that in quotation marks because while the term sounds impressive, I’m still a long way off from being a Rockefel… er, excuse me… a Martha Stewart or Oprah Winfrey), we’re all wondering what has happened to that bull that kept running into our mailboxes every month for the past 10 years. I think he took a right turn in Manhattan and is running the streets of Pamplona right now. Does everyone realize the impact of a stock market value that took a $2 trillion disappearance act in a single week recently?

How quickly things change. I don’t need to remind anyone that we are living in an era of speed—whether on the factory floor or in our daily lives. Someone has said that there have been more technological developments in the past 100 years than in all the rest of history since creation. Here’s a mind teaser for you. Stop and list as many innovations and inventions that have occurred in your own lifetime as you can. Wow! My grandmother, who lived to be 102, went from horse and buggy days to space age, from Model A cars to transatlantic Concord, from slate board to the Internet.

Not everyone likes change, but change is (no kidding) inevitable. I just returned from a 10-day road trip where I had meetings with old-line manufacturers and new-wave entrepreneurs. Whether the company had been in business for a hundred years or a hundred months, the conversation centered on four words—“we have to change.”

A logistics service company, only a few years old, is moving away from its original, single-line mission and going after dot.com furniture company business for consumer deliveries. An old-line vertically-integrated furniture manufacturer is heading (reluctantly) offshore for a horizontal approach to staying alive. An entrepreneurial vendor with years of credentials in his back pocket walked away from his former employer, taking knowledge and employees with him, and launched a competitive business just 10 blocks away—which he is already expanding. Modern Woodworking made major changes a year ago and continues to do so to meet the changes of our readers.

From old-line to dot.coms, staying alert to opportunity no matter how far afield it may seem initially, keeping on top of what’s happening in other industries—and other countries—so you can apply similar principles to your own business, and reading, reading, reading are all keys to knowledge for future growth and development. Those who do their homework will not only succeed, but will welcome changes that are mandatory in today’s marketplace. Grandpa had a great idea when he started the company in his garage, but he didn’t have to deal with the volatility of today’s competitive marketplace.

Will there still be a place for Grandpa’s great grandchildren in the family business? Will succeeding generations make it through another 100 years? The furniture industry, traditionally, has been slow to change, but change, when it is focused, creates opportunity. Developing technology within our own industry is accelerating change. The stock market dictates change. Worker requirements for a better life-style demand change. We’re all still waiting for someone to find a way we can trade in old furniture for new. Value-added service is not just an idea, it is expected today.

And as Martha Stewart would say—“It’s a good thing.”

Carol Carman, Publisher & Editorial Director
3308 Dunwoody-Gables Dr.
Atlanta, GA 30338
e-mail: ccarman@randallpub.com

 

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