Ocean Liners and Sailboats

There are two seemingly unrelated stories in the news today that perfectly exemplify the dynamic nature of American business. American business is ever changing, adapting, iterating. It is a living, breathing entity. Change, move, shift or die.

Here are the stories:

Wal-Mart Explores Selling Large Appliances

Beer Vendor Taking Orders From Fans On Twitter

First, without dredging up the “Is Wal-Mart Good or Evil?” arguments – you can do that here (Google link) – consider the introduction of appliance selling at the number one retailer in the world. Refrigerators, washers, dryers – big items – size and price – that require trained sales staff, a different vendor infrastructure, and may not even be well-suited to their existing, target customer. What makes it so interesting is the sheer size of the operation. This is change on a very large scale.

Wal-Mart is the proverbial ocean liner. Two point one million employees are aboard. It takes time to get up to travel speed, movement is slow, turns are wide, and the reverse thrusters need to be applied well before the docks are visible to the naked eye. Wal-Mart makes changes all the time – very tiny changes. Lots of very tiny changes that (eventually) equate to one big change (after a very long time). This is the strategy of the ocean liner. Move too fast or steer too tight and the passengers have a bumpy ride. As the article suggests, Wal-Mart runs trials, mothballs suspected failures, and rolls out the proven successes. Usually, they do this very slowly. Big engines generating tons of momentum. Set the right course and “Slow and Steady” wins the race for the ocean liner.

Now consider the beer guy. He’s the sailboat. A singleton riding the wind. Today it is all about Twitter. So, he tries to find a competitive advantage in Tweets. Here today, gone tomorrow. Opportunistic, sailing with the wind, maybe even sometimes a little reckless. Case in point: what’s to keep people in Texas or Minnesota from tweeting this guy to “their seats” as a prank? Nothing, probably. But, he made the news. He catapulted out of the dense noise of PR nothingness and got a press blast of immeasurable value. He’s taking a risk but there is a likely reward. Boom or bust. Sure, he’s going to need to trim his sails to get the most out of the wind, but he can turn his business on a dime when he needs to. Reinvent, reinvent, reinvent. The tight turns and variable course may make a wild ride or even self-destruct his business. If the wind shifts unexpectedly, then adjust the sails and try something else. Life on a sailboat.

These very different businesses have a lot in common. They both must change to survive. There are no guarantees for either business. Too fast or too slow could prove fatal. Inactivity could be worse. Risks are taken because risks have to be taken whether you are a big corporation or a small business. Though the ocean liner is large scale and the sailboat is small scale, they both have to navigate, adjust to adversity, and make forward progress.

Wal-Mart and the Beer Guy. Ocean Liners and Sailboats. Very different? Not so much.