A fundamental problem with many companies is, once successful, they begin to believe what was successful in the past will continue to be successful in the future. These blinkers can be rational as...

A fundamental problem with many companies is, once successful, they begin to believe what was successful in the past will continue to be successful in the future. These blinkers can be rational as well as emotional.

Success often clouds the ability to see and take advantage of new opportunities. For instance, Barnes & Noble and Borders, national booksellers, failed to perceive the internet as a significant threat to their book sales. Had they done so they could have pre-empted much of Amazon.com’s success. Both were riding high on their success in driving many independent bookstores out of business. The internet was unproven and didn’t fit neatly into their business model. As a result, they entered cautiously and very slowly. This gave Amazon sufficient time to become a formidable competitor. To try and catch up with Amazon, Borders created a separate online division. Unfortunately, this separate organisation was so divorced from its bricks-and-mortar sister part that Borders missed the opportunity to adopt a bricks-and-clicks strategy that combined the strengths of its online and offline capabilities. Eventually, Borders sold its online unit to Amazon.