Taken together, the news and conversations of the past few weeks have reminded us that companies are chasing the latest trends and fads, diverting resources away from their core business, and taking unnecessary risks.

As we all know with classic examples such as Kodak and digital photography, Blockbuster and film downloads, there is clearly some kind of dividing line here, where incumbents are competing with dominant technologies. Despite having the opportunity to get into the technology early on, they instead chose to stay focused on: A business that was ultimately destined to fail.

However, despite having a strong foundation and some opportunities for development and improvement, many companies are distracted by the new and innovative, like the Jackdaw always attracted to the shiny. I'm sure there are more examples.

Of course, someone has to take the first step to commercialize a new concept or technology, but success in this field requires leading a long-established company to continually improve. It requires a different mindset and level of agility.

That is the role of startups and venture capital. When large companies try to innovate within the normal corporate framework, decision-making inertia in large organizations often results in overinvestment and movement too slowly.

Technology and business practices may be evolving faster than the products and services you are bringing to market. This is why, over the years, some great products from large companies have actually been developed in skunkworks teams rather than in the core activity of product development, and why some companies interested in early-stage ideas have , investing through a dedicated innovation department that can be run externally. That corporate world.

Over the past decade, the world of automakers has invested heavily in fully autonomous vehicles and various forms of car-sharing services.

Although there are exceptions, most were sold at reduced prices or closed without a return on investment. I'm sure some at the board level questioned the original decision, but the wealth that some were claiming existed and was made possible by the transformation in mobility models that the investment community was calling for was being made available to investors. That was the trigger for the decision.

A similar problem occurs when switching to electromobility. Every company that embarked on a multi-billion dollar 100% BEV transition has been forced to pull back because customer demand and government incentives can no longer be trusted.

In the after-sales sector, new tools are constantly emerging that are claimed to significantly improve the efficiency of garages and garages. While some of these are technically superior, they often require large capital investments in each facility that cannot be financially justified.