There has been a shift in human behavior over the last two decades and as such for business to be relevant hence successful , there must be a shift in the way things are done . A business that is going to succeed in this age in which we find ourselves must be a business that is relevant .
What does it mean for a business to be relevant ? Back in the 90s and early 2000s Yahoo was one of the most visible companies in the world . Yahoo offered many of us the first experience in what was called the internet . Its homepage had news , had travel , had sports , had fashion and basically anything and everything that you wanted to know about . Its email was the default email for most people rivaled only by Hotmail .
Then yahoo messenger came and changed the game completely . For the first time through Yahoo chat , you could see when the person you were communicating with was typing . Then came the addition of voice and video making the yahoo experience a different and wholesome experience .
They once had an opportunity to buy Facebook for $ 1.1 billion but did not do so . In July 2017 , Facebook crossed the half a trillion dollar mark in valuation . Why is this piece of information important ? Yahoo has been dropping in value in a free fall and most of its $ 33 billion value is as a result of its shares in Alibaba and not in business it generates .
What Happened ?
They lost the relevance they had in the past primarily because they could not read certain indices that make a company thrive and grow . They did not resonate anymore with the people that made them great in the first place and neither could they capture the hearts of a new generation that would be defined by Snapchat , Instagram and more appealing social media platforms . People had new choices , new options and people had grown older and had new interests .
Relevance is the key to sustainable business growth and it is defined as the quality or state of being closely connected or appropriate ( Oxford Dictionary ). The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as the degree to which something is related or useful to what is happening or being talked about .
To drive the business to a place of relevance or to keep it there , vision is not enough ! Vision must be constantly evolving to stay closely connected or appropriate . There are three key areas where any business aiming to differentiate themselves and aiming to stay relevant must consider .
First is a connection ( RELEVANCE ) to the times . There is a grave danger of leading how you were led . Times have changed and people have changed and if you do not appreciate this fact , you will not be able to attract and retain the top talents of today . There is also the danger of structures and policies that worked for an era but not for this era as well as a knowledge shift from a time when the boss knew more than the employee to a time when the employee knows more .
Many bosses are not able to come to terms with this and as such they have not been able to make the best of the times .
There is also a shift from when we hired brilliant people and told them what to do to a time now when we hire brilliant people and let them tell us what to do . If we do not create an environment where new thinking can thrive then we will never rise beyond where we have been .
If our thinking is more skewed in favor of the past than the present and the future , we stand the risk of seeing as threats what should be seen as opportunities . It is also very important to note that customer behavior has changed dramatically over the last two decades and more so in the last decade . The customer of before was ignorant , patient and had limited choices .
The customer of today is well informed , intolerant and has unlimited choices . Technology especially social media has bridged the information gap between rural and urban areas . Many people have people in the village with whom they communicate on Whatsapp every other time .
What Is The Implication Of This ?
A large body of customers can make an informed decision about your business within minutes all over the country ! Also note that the customer of yesteryears did not have a voice if he did not have money .
The customer of today can be nameless , broke and have a very loud voice . If you don ’ t have a proper understanding of the times you will lose your relevance – your connectivity to the realities that can make or break your business . Without a proper understanding of the times , you may find yourself investing in the past and losing the future .
In his book , Business @ the Speed of Thought , Bill Gates says ; In three years every product my company makes will be obsolete . The only question is whether we ’ ll make them obsolete or somebody else will … One day somebody will catch us napping . One day an eager upstart will put Microsoft out of business . I just hope its fifty years from now , not two or five .
If that does not make you think about how you run your business then nothing else can .
It is said that Henry Ford once declared that if he had asked his team what the next project was to be , they would have told him that the next big thing was to make horses that run faster and definitely not the production of cars . The big take out from this is that it is not enough for us to have ideas . Our ideas must be relevant .
Relevance is the process of aligning your senses to present day realities and is the number one quality that will keep a leader in office . Many people do not have their senses aligned to the reality of the time they are living in nor the environment in which they are operating .
Once your ideas are no longer resonating with people , your circle of value will begin to shrink and once that happens your relevance is over . The truth is that most great ideas are rejected by experts at the onset but one common attribute of