NEGOTIATING THE MARKET’S HALF PIPE By TOM SOJA Part I
We’ve seen the bottom and it looks deep and flat, not pointed, U-shaped, not V-shaped, and hopefully not L-shaped. As bad as the telecom market has been over the past two years, the recent winter ski season, at least here in New England has been great. When this article was initially proposed, New Englanders were experiencing their sixth (!) straight month in which there has been accumulating snowfall – a skier’s dream to be sure. While peering up at the half-pipe section of a terrain park at a popular ski resort late last Winter, the parallels between that type of ski adventure and the market “adventure” that the industry has endured during the past two years brought into sharp focus consideration for what it would take to negotiate such treacherous terrain, especially as a ski patrol “expert” went headover-heals (losing skis and poles in the process) on just such challenging terrain. The market has witnessed similar self-destruction by both novices and experts, but just as that unfortunate ski patrol person got back on his feet to ski again, so too is there a modest resurgence or at least a resurrection amongst some of the firms in the telecom industry. If all one had ever known either in skiing or the telecom market is a nice smooth ride gently upward to the peak of customer interest followed by a nice smooth cruise down the gentle slopes of profitability, there is no way that one would be prepared for what lies within the 15
bumps and grinds of a terrain park. But if one were interested (or stubborn enough!) to try and survive rather than cruise safely around to an alternative field of nicely groomed opportunities – basic human instinct is fight or flight, remember – one might consider what would constitute reasonable preparation for such an undertaking (no pun intended.) You’d need to develop a few new skills or techniques just to be able to drop-in over the edge much less be able to come up the other side or perform tricks and eventually glide down and through without wiping out and losing everything as did the hapless ski patrol “hot dog.” Increased flexibility might be a good idea since new opportunities, whether for fun or profit, generally require some type of “stretch” either in resources or existing skill sets. Strengthening would not be a bad idea as well which means not waiting until you’re on the precipice, but rather constantly preparing for new opportunities through training even if you’re not sure exactly what those opportunities might look like. Remember, chance favors the prepared mind as well as the prepared body – and the prepared organization. So having pushed this analogy to a reasonable limit, what lessons can we draw? l When a firm’s main markets go down, alternative opportunities may lie in related fields in which core competencies might be applied.