25. The Law of Obsolescence

The Laws of Business Success

Under the Laws of Business

Whatever exists is already becoming obsolete.

The Law of Obsolescence says that everything-products, services, skills, core competencies, advertisements, marketing strategies, and business processes-is becoming obsolete with the passing of time. To survive and thrive in these times of turbulence, you and your company must be fast on your feet and prepared to deal with continual change as an unavoidable fact of life.

The first corollary of the Law of Obsolescence is
Tomorrow will be different from today.

The most frustrated people in business today are those who are trying to hold back the tide of change by failing to adapt, or by adapting too slowly to the competitive onslaught that is taking place all around them.

The second corollary of this law is
Continuing innovation and improvement are essential to survival.

Innovation and improvement are not things you do when you have enough time and money. Every company must have its top people dedicated to developing the products and services of tomorrow. If a company does not commit itself to continuous innovation, it will find itself with a shaky present and an uncertain future. It will simply be left in the dust by competitors who are eager to take its business.

The most successful companies, under virtually all economic conditions, are those that continually innovate and introduce new products and services, even when business is slow. There seems to be a direct relationship between the quantity of new ideas the company attempts and the ultimate financial success of the business.

The third corollary of the Law of Obsolescence is
The best way to predict the future is to create it.

When Walt Disney was asked if he was worried about people copying his ideas, he replied by saying, "Don’t worry! We’ll come up with new ideas faster than anyone can possibly steal them."

This should be your philosophy, as well. You should always have more ideas for new products and services than you possibly have time or resources to develop. You should then examine the entire range of possibilities to choose the ones that have the greatest market potential at that moment.

Be open to everyone’s ideas. A person working in a company can often see a need for a product or service that can revolutionize both the company and the industry. You probably know the story of the scientist at 3M Corporation in Minnesota who was having a tough time getting a bookmark to stick in the pages of his hymn-book. He experimented with a variety of glues, looking for an adhesive that would enable a piece of paper to stick on and come off several times without leaving a mark or losing its stickiness.

He finally developed the adhesive that led to today’s Post-it notes. 3M Corporation now dominates the world market for stick-on notes and sells several hundred million dollars’ worth of this product each year. And because of profit sharing, the researcher who came up with the idea has become a wealthy man.

How you can apply this law immediately:

1. Imagine that your highest-volume, highest-profit product will be obsolete within three to five years. What new products or services could you develop and market to take its place?

2. Imagine that your business burned to the ground overnight and you were tasked with getting new facilities and starting over. What would you do differently?

Source: Brian Tracy, The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, (San Francisco, 2000).