Never Look Again!

The rate of change in business is ever-increasing.

Think about the recent announcement of “virtual automobile company”. This company designed their new cars using contract labor rented from a competitor with a temporary surplus of people. They will assemble their cars using time rented on robot assembly lines. These lines can change from building refrigerators to cars to lawn-mowers to … in a few hours and they have people only to monitor the computers, unload the raw materials and load the finished products.

I have friends who’s career is based on a factory which builds a particular aircraft. What happens to that idea when each aircraft is built by the robot factory which has spare capacity that week?

Another thought, “printing” parts – machines, based on the idea of an ink-jet printer, are begining to print parts that once required a skilled craftsman. AND, each part in a series may be different, with no more trouble than an ink-jet prints a different picture on each piece of paper.

I have friends who’s career is based on the idea that “things” are made somewhere and must be moved to some-other-where. What happens to that idea when a lawn-mower can be “downloaded” as easily as an mp3?

Think about “wiMax” – wiFi on steroids – a single tower covers a VHF-TV-like area and penetrates buildings and trees. Will wifi survive? Yes, but only for security issues. Will cable-net and DSL survive? No, because they can’t compete on price or usability. Even now, with wiMax in it’s infancy, 6gb home plus unlimited data for a laptop is less than either cable or DSL.

Who do you know who’s job depends on cable-net or DSL?

How many people do you know who still have landline phones? How many fewer is it than last year? How many have gone to VOIP? To cell only?

Can old-style phone companies survive, the the massive burden of wired infrastructure, ever decreasing subscriber base and no DSL to generate cash?

Companies have always had to re-invent themselves. In every industry when a seismic event occurs, some companies will die(either quickly or slowly), some will thrive and some new ones will pop-up. In every case, the new or surviving companies will need fewer people.