[The 2020s Begin!] What Are the Traits of Companies That Will Surely Go Under Within 10 Years? [← The Only Solution Is ○○]

In recent years, unprecedented and unexpected events have been happening one after another every year, so many that it's impossible to look back on them all...

For me personally, 2019 left a strong impression of the threat of natural disasters.

And as for politics and the economy, many people have probably gone past disappointment to the point where they "don't even register anymore."

"Don't be swayed by politics or the economy; everything depends on yourself".

Business owners tend to have that mindset, and my own conviction in it has grown even stronger.

So, 2020 — truly a new era — has begun. We can't know what the future holds, but I want to set down the clear signs that "doing this will surely sink your company" in the 2020s.

This includes an element of prediction, but it should be broadly correct.

I'd be glad if you took this in now, right at the start of the year.

Check the content in text

To give the conclusion first, this is about "throwing away all of your old ways of working and shifting to digital transformation (DX)."

Specifically, the following can be called the traits of companies that will surely go under within 10 years.

Strong resistance to getting things done digitally

In the Showa and Heisei eras, communicating "face to face" and "taking time" was thought to be valuable.

But that is no longer the case.

Because of these, there is no merit in choosing offline.

Hot-blooded policies such as "Never settle important matters by email" and "Sales are earned with your feet" are, you could say, outdated values in the Reiwa era.

I think "the communication itself doesn't remain as data" is quite serious, given that data-driven management is unavoidable for every company.

Unable to let go

For a company to adapt to digital transformation, it needs to discard its old values and accept a way of thinking that is 180 degrees different.

and so on.

Small businesses never had much slack in people, things, and money to begin with, and that will only get more serious, so anything that keeps pouring out money or time by precedent without considering return on investment has to be cut or replaced.

This is truly an area where you must not show mercy.

Large companies have started taking the scalpel to "seniority-based promotion" as their most important and urgent issue.

For cutting and replacing, please also refer to this article.

3 Things Companies Should Change to Survive From 2020 Onward November 16, 2019

Marketing is neglected

Many small businesses in Japan either don't know about marketing or can't use it at all.

I won't go as far as explaining what marketing is, but most of the problems small businesses face can be solved through marketing.

"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two — and only two — basic functions: marketing and innovation."
Peter Drucker (the inventor of "modern management" and "management")

Innovation, by the way, has become easier to generate today through the use of technology.

Companies need to keep working, permanently, on creating innovation through marketing and the use of technology.

The person at the top has no interest in, is unfamiliar with, or makes light of the latest technology

Since you are reading this site, I doubt this applies to you, but a company whose leader makes excuses like "I'm an analog person so I don't really get it..." and depends on employees or contractors even for knowledge has no future.

The internet and related technologies are themselves the base of society's infrastructure and, like marketing, the foundation of economic activity that comes with any business.

Knowledge and know-how in such an important area are the company's very assets. They need to be treasured, including making sure they take root inside the company.

There is also the question of whether the person at the top "should learn programming or technology skills," and I think it is necessary at least to get your hands moving in a walkthrough fashion.

What technology achieves is "the extension of bodily functions", so having it soak into your body is a faster route than trying hard to understand it in your head.

Don't hesitate to change course overnight

Next-generation technology keeps rewriting common sense one thing after another.

Methods that worked until recently stop working, more convenient things appear — it becomes important to ride the waves, almost like surfing.

If you are a business owner, you probably change course all the time, but sometimes employees can't accept it.

Even so, what matters is to break away and start running with the new policy or plan.

It often turns out that a method reworked in a few days, after throwing away a long-term plan that took a long time to build, works better.

To use a worn-out term, this is PDCA, but from now on the P (plan) can be quite rough.

"Try it first. Then correct course while running"—this should become a shared understanding from the top of the company to the bottom.

Summary

So, to wrap things up:

There are many other points, but these are probably the key ones.

And in the end, what really matters is just one thing:

Nerve.

"I have seen great, thriving businesses destroyed by business owners who made decisions out of fear. But I have never yet seen a business ruined by courage."
Dan Kennedy (a world authority on direct marketing)

"It is not the strongest that survives, nor the most intelligent. The only one that can survive is the one that can change."
Charles Darwin (British natural scientist)

When you make up your mind and take the plunge, things will almost always turn out for the better as a result.