Not in this economy! Or maybe not ever - again!
I got a call from a friend tonite, VP of Bus Dev for a multi-billion dollar company. He told me they "just laid off 30% of their sales staff"
(You know a company is calling it "gameover" when they start laying off large percentages of sales teams.)
Many multi-billion dollar companies are cratering under the weight of their own inefficiencies in this recession.
But this isn't just another recession - a down cycle from which we will soon recover. This is a tectonic shift in how companies do business, forever.
How customers buy, what they buy and where they buy is changing faster than any company will ever again be able to keep pace with - as one company, sustainable enough to grow to become a billion dollar company.
Will 2009 be the end of the multi-billion dollar company? We'll see.
What I see for 2009 is billions of dollars in opportunities for millions of entrepreneurs!
Needs still go unfilled, compelling problems are still seeking truly disruptive solutions and now......
....there's an abundance of talent and creativity that's been unleashed from the vise-grip of those billion dollar companies.
Oh the irony! Corporations claim their greatest challenge is finding and managing talent.
Has our global economy outgrown the "billion dollar company" as a business model?
2 comments:
Jackie, I think you hit the nail right on the head!
Just read a good piece by Perry Marshall on this subject - the beauty of the niche market: http://www.perrymarshall.com/niche-business/
Speaking personally, we have no desire to grow Chrometa into a billion $ enterprise - lean and mean is the way to go we believe, for 2009 and beyond!
I second Brett's comment - a niche market means a dedicated customer base.
It's like with fish - when they're in large numbers, you use a net. When they dwindle down to a few, you use a pole and line. In other words, when the customers are fewer and fewer, everyone needs to get more targeted, and not think in terms of billions of dollars and global reach.
Though I disagree that any of these changes are permanent. They may last our lifetimes, but they're hardly permanent. We've made huge economic gains in the last ten years - huge economic falls just come with that territory.
Personally, I just hope we finally start seeing some regulation.
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