Nothing more highlights the importance of reinventing the business design “in time” than this quote of Lew Platt. When customers move, profits also move with them. The biggest enemy of a new business design is a successful current business design. The more successful the current business design has been in terms of getting the required market share, providing the necessary growth or generating the targeted profits, the more difficult it is to move away from it and reinvent a new business design. However, the signs of the current business design becoming obsolete or irrelevant will be all over to be seen – falling revenues, falling market share, diminishing profits, diminishing power to price, less enquiries, less repeat buys, less customer interest and many others.

Business leaders responsible for developing business designs must therefore learn to remain dispassionate with their current business designs to be able to continuously reinvent.