The iPhone is a once in a generation product. Apple has had a number of hits including the Mac, the iMac, the industry-changing MacBook Air, and AirPods. All of them were hits that would have defined a company. But all of those pale in comparison to the success of the iPhone. Sony’s Walkman comes to mind. The Volkswagen Bus was a generational icon. For a long time, AOL was the internet. Google is synonymous with search. Microsoft Office will never die. The products from big tech companies are the root of all technology for our time.
But what do they do for a second act? Most companies with one world-bending product don’t have an answer. They are content to let that one product be the company’s identity. That does not always end well. Just ask Nokia, Palm, and RIM. They all had amazing success. What they couldn’t pull off was multigenerational success. Your business might be wildly successful today. But what measures have you put in place to ensure it will continue to be successful tomorrow, and for many tomorrows to come? Consider the following:
Tap into the Global Talent Pool
It is a mistake to believe that all the best talent is currently in your company. That is the type of miscalculation that will allow competitors to eat your lunch when you least expect it. This is where hiring foreign independent contractors can help you not only keep your advantage, but expand it. Due to the pandemic, some of the brightest minds are currently underutilized. The employment market is global, not just regional. You are missing out on the world’s most valuable resources if you are not tapping into that global market of superstars. Be assured that your competitors are.
It might take some time to get that talent up to speed and tuned in to your company culture. Bringing in new contractors is a long-term play. You have to be committed to training the next generation of leaders. Many people think of hires as something they need for the moment. But if you are hiring for the moment, you are thinking only about your current success. If you care about the company’s next generation of success, you have to hire with that in mind. Your next big product or service might not come from within. It is up to you to bring in fresh minds with fresh ideas. And those ideas can come from anywhere in the world.
Corporate Education
Creating a high-performance business culture means creating a knowledge base of what worked and what didn’t. Sometimes, a company was successful because of a charismatic leader. You cannot clone a charismatic leader. Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs. The reason Apple can have multigenerational success is because they have a process of corporate education that can be transferred from one person to another.
If your company is successful because of an individual, that could spell trouble for the future of your company. Discover what it is about that individual that led to success. Then codify those lessons into something that can be passed on. If you want your culture of success to continue, you have to transform it into something transferable in the form of corporate education.
Try New Things
Trying new things is just as important for companies as it is for individuals. One of the reasons so many businesses were on the brink of extinction during the pandemic was that they had never modeled other possibilities of how their business could function. They were locked into a single model and had nothing on the drawing board when that model no longer worked.
Having different avenues for your business to explore is as important as having multiple ways out in the event of a fire. One day, your present formula will be insufficient. If you want your success to continue well into the future, you have to diversify and try different things right now.
Nothing lasts forever. Even so, there is no reason you cannot have generations of success by utilizing the global talent pool, turning your corporate culture into corporate education, and trying new things.
Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.