In the stock market, there are plenty of people looking for safe, reliable investments. These types of companies are referred to as “blue chips.”
Companies like Apple, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, IBM are great examples. They are established and continue to profit whether the economy is good or bad.
However, there is one risk factor blue chip companies face – the threat of startup companies. Startups come into a market with an innovative idea and typically a new way to do things. The larger blue chip companies have a hard time reacting to this due to their size and scale of the operations.
“Predicting the Turn: The High Stakes Game of Business Between Startups and Blue Chips” by Dave Knox is a great read for anyone working for a blue chip company because it gives ways to combat this risk factor.
The book covers the relationship between large Fortune 500 companies (AKA blue chips) and startups, and explains why startups cannot be ignored by larger corporations. The book also offers tips on how established brands can compete and interact with startup companies across various markets.
Though the book was published in 2017, most of the ideas still ring true. Readers can get more out of the book by considering the long-term effects the tactics have had on the companies explored in each example.
The book has an overarching theme for blue chips that boils down to innovate or die. If a company does not stay on top of new developments in aspects like technology and consumer insights, it will slowly start to lose money.
My favorite example that Knox uses is The Eastman Kodak Company. Kodak was the leading photo company until 2012 when it filed for bankruptcy. Kodak held 90% of the market in film and 85% in camera sales in the U.S. during the 1990s. Its tag line, “Kodak Moment,” is still popular today.
So, what happened? The company didn’t invest in the digitization of the film i...