All Businesses Experience Ups and Downs

The iconic American company Boeing was founded in 1916 by entrepreneurial lumber industrialist-turned-aviation pioneer William Edward Boeing.

Boeing’s entrepreneurial journey started in timber but his passion was aviation and horses.

He replicated his business expertise in aircraft design, manufacturing and servicing.

Since its founding over a century ago, the creatively innovative firm grew to become one of the world’s largest manufacturers of aircraft, helicopters and space vehicles.

The firm is also a lead supplier of military hardware.

In the aviation sector, Boeing was a key player since its early days, but in more contemporary times its Boeing 707 aircraft ushered in the jet age of aviation.

The Boeing 747 model that gained notoriety as the jumbo jet made commercial air travel available to the masses.

Over the past years, the multinational corporation’s fortunes have been shattered.

It began with product quality challenges that resulted in leadership and managerial changes, and more recently the firm’s production was disrupted by industrial action.

Delivery delays have caused frustration, product offerings of competitors became more attractive for airlines wanting to expand their fleet or replace aging aircraft, orders shrank, and profitability decreased.

Currently, a staff retrenchment process is underway, with thousands of employees losing their jobs.

Boeing is reportedly still the United States’ largest exporter in monetary terms, but one wonders how long the firm will hold this position.

On the upside, Boeing’s new leadership is hard at work fixing what was broken, and striking staff have returned to work.

For some firms, a proverbial kick in the butt becomes a wake-up call; owners work hard, and this results in recovery.

But many are not so fortunate and disappear from the business world forever.

In the aftermath of economic history, there are numerous stories of firms which have gone from hero to zero.

The name that readily springs to mind is Kodak, once the most dominant in its field. After a century of supremacy, the firm declared bankruptcy in 2012.

Examples of other international firms that are no longer around include Polaroid, a firm that pioneered instant photography, and Blackberry – once the leader in the smartphone market.

Then there was Tower Records, an iconic music retailer and one of the first in the online music space, and RadioShack, which in its time was the go-to place for technical innovation.

Finland’s business success story, Nokia, once synonymous with mobile phone supremacy, resisted smartphone evolution and in contemporary times became a classic example of ‘going from hero to zero’.

Nokia, which had existed for almost 160 years and at one time employed more than 90 000 people, is reportedly working with dogged determination to make a comeback, but with a different market focus and offering.

Even in Namibia there are firms that were once great but are no longer around or now operate in a different sector with a vastly changed business model.

All businesses, big and small, will at one time or another experience ups and downs.

How they weather them is what makes or breaks the enterprise.

It requires leadership dynamics that prioritise adaptability, creativity and agility.

• Danny Meyer is reachable at danny@smecompete.com